During 1865 and 1866 dodo bones were found in the Mare aux Songes, a swamp in Mauritius; before this, only skeletal fragments were known. The discovery at the Mare aux Songes coincided with the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a story which featured a dodo, and this coincidence catapulted the extinct bird to super-stardom in the popular imagination.
The bones had all been found by a local schoolteacher named George Clark and most were quickly sent to London and Paris for auction, from where they soon passed into museum collections. However, Clark kept a few for himself and many years later (in 1921 and 1922) two of his daughters who had moved to Hastings in southern England contacted a local Hasting’s collector, Thomas Parkin, for help in disposing of what they had left.
Parkin was friendly with another local resident the ornithologist Hugh Whistler, a man who had written a well known book on Indian birds. Parkin, who was elderly at the time and in poor health bought several of the bones and passed them on to his friend.
Hugh Whistler died soon afterwards at a comparatively early age, but shortly before his death he gave the bones to his young son Ralfe who treasured them for the rest of his long life. Not only did Ralfe carefully preserve the bones, but they inspired his lifelong obsession with the dodo and the bones became the foundation of his enormous collection.
All of the following are the examples that Hugh and Ralfe owned and that came originally from the Mare aux Songes in Mauritius.
Errol Fuller (Curator)
Further lots from the Ralfe Whistler Dodo collection include -
Lots 28-41 (24th September auction)
Lots 237-304 (25th September sealed bid auction)
Natural history
