Return of the crazy bird : the sad, strange tale of the dodo / Clara Pinto-Correia.

Author
Correia, Clara Pinto [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
New York, NY : Copernicus Books, ©2003.
Description
xv, 216 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
ReCAP - Remote StorageQL696.C67 C67 2003 Browse related items Request

    Details

    Subject(s)
    Summary note
    "The Dodo went from being newly discovered to extinction in little more than a century. This flightless, odd-looking bird was seen for the first time by Europeans and then annihilated by Europeans all between the early sixteenth and the second half of the seventeenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century, all that remained of what Portuguese explorers called the "crazy bird" was a patchwork of tall tales, contradictory reports, incompatible illustrations, and a single dodo's skull and foot. The dodo had become, in short, an unsolvable puzzle, but a puzzle that persisted in art, literature, and scientific speculation." "In this remarkable book, Clara Pinto-Correia shows how the human intellect and the imagination prey on sketchy facts and images, and how missing pieces and incomplete lines are merged and fused to make a cohesive whole. By considering the incredibly strong hold of this bumbling and ungainly creature on our collective scientific and literary imagination, Pinto-Correia teaches us not just about the ill-fated bird from the island paradise of Mauritius, but about our own abiding need to make sense of the world around us."--Jacket.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-207) and index.
    Contents
    • Weirdest creatures
    • Discovery
    • Emperor and the painters
    • Mauritius and Rʹeunion
    • Rodrigues
    • Rise of dodology
    • Enduring legacy.
    ISBN
    • 0387988769 ((alk. paper))
    • 9780387988764 ((alk. paper))
    LCCN
    2002070737
    OCLC
    49902900
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