ROLL") English mathematician and author, son of the Rev. Charles Dodgson, vicar of Daresbury, Cheshire, was born in that village. The literary life of "Lewis Carroll" became familiar to a wide circle of readers, but the private life of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was retired and practically uneventful. After four years at Rugby, Dodgson matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in May 185o. He took a first class in the final mathe matical school in 1854, and the following year was appointed mathematical lecturer at Christ Church, a post he continued to fill till 1881. His earliest publications, beginning with A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry (186o), and The Formulae of Plane Trigonometry 086i), were exclusively mathematical ; but late in the year 1865 he published, under the pseudonym of "Lewis Carroll," Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which has become an English classic. It was an open secret that the original of "Alice" was a daughter of Dean Liddell. Alice was followed (in the "Lewis Carroll" series) by Phantasmagoria (1869) ; Through the Looking-Glass (1871) ; The Hunting of the Snark (1876) ; Rhyme and Reason (1883) ; A Tangled Tale (1885) ; and Sylvie and Bruno (in two parts, 1889 and 1893). He wrote skits on Oxford subjects from time to time. The Dynamics of a Particle was written on the occasion of the contest between Gladstone and Mr. Gathorne Hardy (afterwards earl of Cranbrook) ; and The New Belfry in ridicule of the erection put up at Christ Church for the bells that were removed from the cathedral tower. While "Lewis Carroll' was delighting children of all ages, C. L. Dodgson periodically published mathematical works—An Elementary Treatise on Determinants (1867) ; Euclid, Book V., proved Alge braically (1874) ; Euclid and his Modern Rivals (1879), the work on which his reputation as a mathematician largely rests; and Curiosa Mathematica (1888). Though the fact of his author ship of the "Alice" books was well known, he invariably stated, when occasion called for such a pronouncement, that "Mr. Dodg son neither claimed nor acknowledged any connection with the books not published under his name." His memory is appro priately kept green by a cot in the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond street, London, which was endowed perpetually by a public subscription. The beautifully written ms. of Alice in Wonderland was sold by Dean Liddell's daughter in April 1928 £ 15,400.
See S. D. Collingwood, Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (1898). DODO, a large bird formerly inhabiting the island of Mauri tius, but now extinct—the Didus ineptus of Linnaeus. The Dutch called them Walgvogels, i.e., nauseous birds, because no cook ing made them palatable. A com pendious bibliography of notices of the bird up to the year 1848, will be found in the classical work, The Dodo and its Kindred, by H. E. Strickland and A. G.
Melville (London, 1848), and the list was continued by G. R. von Frauenfeld Neu au f ge f undene Abbildung des Dronte (Wien, 1868) for 20 years later. The last evidence we have of the dodo's existence is furnished by a jour nal kept by Benj. Harry and now in the British Museum (mss.
Addit. 3,668, II D). This shows its survival till 1681, but the writer's sole remark upon it is that its "flesh is very hard." Professor Reinhardt was the first to suggest the affinity of the dodo to the pigeons (Columbidae) and Sir R. Owen's examination of the material discovered in a mud pool by G. Clark in 1865 confirmed this.
In 1889 Th. Sauzier, acting for the Government of Mauritius, sent a great number of bones from the same swamp to Sir Ed ward Newton. From these the first correctly restored and prop erly mounted skeleton was prepared and sent to Paris, to be forwarded to. the museum of Mauritius. Good specimens are in the British Museum, at Paris and at Cambridge, England.
The huge blackish bill of the dodo terminated in a large, horny hook; the cheeks were partly bare, the stout, short legs yellow. The plumage was dark ash-coloured, with whitish breast and tail, yellowish white wings (incapable of flight). The short tail formed a curly tuft.
The dodo inhabited forests and laid one large white egg on a mass of grass. Man and the hogs and other animals he imported effected its extermination.
The nearest ally of the dodo was the solitaire (q.v.) of Rodri guez, also now extinct.