The dodo bird
There are a
great many kinds of animals and birds in the wild .some have died out for ever;
some are in danger .the dodo is one of the birds which is now extinct. The early
Portuguese explorers were the first to see the dodo. They were seeking a safe sea-route to India and discovered the island of Mauritius
half –way across the Indian ocean in 1598.They used this island to have their
ships restocked with water and food .so
whenever European trading ships stopped at Mauritius ,the sailors went ashore
and hunted these birds for food .How did the food taste ?one sailor wrote : ``We
call them the disgusting birds because the longer their flesh is cooked ,
the
more disgusting it becomes .” But another sailor reported: ``From Marcs to September
the birds are very fat and exceptionally tasty.”
A fey dodos
were brought back to Europe .No one had seen anything like them before .So rich
people loved to have them in their private zoos or homes. But nobody took much
interest in the dodos or in their welfare. Then suddenly there were fewer and
fewer reports about them .Within a hundred years all the birds had been
destroyed. There was not a single dodo left in the world .Hence the phrase as
dead as dodo comes from this fact.
The only
record of their existence was a few
painting and one single stuffed specimen .This stuffed bird was in Oxford
Museum .but in 1775 as the museum directors were busy cleaning it, they found
the bird a little moth - eaten, and had it destroyed. So the last remains of
the dodo were thrown away.
Since then wits the help of the painting and a
few old bones good models of the dodo have been made for the museums.
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