The Dodo and the Solitaire,
A Natural History

"The Dodo and the Solitaire . . . meticulously traces human encounters with these ill-fated large flightless birds . . . Parish's book is rich with contemporary images, evocative descriptions, and later anatomical studies." —Library Journal

The Dodo and the Solitaire is the most comprehensive book to date about these two famously extinct birds. It contains all the known contemporary accounts and illustrations of the dodo and solitaire, covering their history after extinction and discussing their ecology, classification, phylogenetic placement, and evolution. Both birds were large and flightless and lived on inhabited islands some 500 miles east of Madagascar. The first recorded descriptions of the dodo were provided by Dutch sailors who first encountered them in 1598—within 100 years, the dodo was extinct. So quickly did the bird disappear that there is insufficient evidence to form an entirely accurate picture of its appearance and ecology, and the absence has led to much speculation. The story of the dodo, like that of the solitaire, has been pieced together from fragments, both literary and physical, that have been carefully compiled and examined in this extraordinary volume.

The Dodologist's Miscellany: The following files comprise material relating to the dodo (Raphus cucullatus) and solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria), extinct flightless pigeons (Aves: Columbidae) of the Mascarene Islands. They are available to download as pdf files.