The Dodo, Didus, is a bird that inhabits some of the islands of the East Indies. Its history is little known; but if the representation of it be at all just, this is the ugliest and most disgusting of birds, resembling in its appearance one of those bloated and unwieldy persons who by a long course of vicious and gross indulgences are become a libel on the human figure. – Charlotte Turner Smith, A natural history of birds: intended chiefly for young persons, 1807

I hate to say it, but the dodo looked as if it deserved extinction. What other fate could there have been for such a foolish-looking ground pigeon? A grotesque, tubby creature with huge