Dodos, a Rodrigues Solitaire, and other Extinct Birds

Did you think this was a Dodo? You’re not a dodo for thinking so. The bird depicted in this chromolithograph is the famous Dodo’s closest relative, the Rodrigues Solitaire. Both species of flightless birds are now extinct. François Leguat was marooned on the island of Rodrigues in the 1690s and described the Rodrigues Solitaire in detail. This image appears in L. Walter Rothschild’s Extinct Birds, published in London in 1907. Extinct Birds is one of many rare volumes usually preserved in the rare book room behind the scenes at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s Library. It is currently on display in the public reading room.