Walter Rothschild: A life-size photograph of a very large Tortoise (Testudo daudinii). From the President of the American Museum of Natural History, New York: A series of thirteen large photographs of skeletons and restorations of extinct Tertiary Mammalia.
For the past two years Prof. Dendy, of Canterbury College, New Zealand, has been minutely investigating the development of the Tuatara Lizard (Sphenodon punctatus), declared to be the most remarkable reptile now living in New Zealand; and a detailed account of the results of his researches has just arrived in England, and will shortly be published. Although the Lizard in question is said to be the oldest existing type of reptile up to the present, little has been known of its life-history, as it is very rare, and shy and retiring in its habits. The Tuatara Lizard was first mentioned in a diary kept by Mr. Anderson, the companion of Captain Cook; but the first really detailed account of the reptile was given by Dieffenbach in 1843,[1] when he said:—"I had been apprised of the existence of a large Lizard which the natives call Tuatéra, or Narara, and of which they are much afraid." Owing to the rarity of the Tuatara Lizard, the New Zealand Government passed an Act to prohibit the taking or slaying of the reptile, but, as usual, forgot one of the most important points, namely, the insertion of a clause forbidding the collecting of the eggs. Fortunately for the Tuatara, however, Mr. P. Henaghan, the principal keeper on Stephen's Island, appears at present to be the only man who knows where to look for them, although it is stated that two German collectors have been lately making vigorous but vain efforts to obtain specimens of the eggs. Prof. Dendy had permission granted him by the Government to collect both eggs and adults, and with the help of Mr. Henaghan has been so successful in his investigations of the life-history of the interesting reptile, that many new and important facts will now be made known to the scientific world. The adult animal has a spotted skin, and a crest of separate white flat sharp spines, and is possessed of three sets of teeth. On Stephen's Island the eggs of the Lizard are found to be laid in November, and the embryo pass the winter in a state of hybernation unknown to any other vertebrate embryo, and do not emerge from the egg until nearly thirteen months have elapsed. One curious fact that has come to light is that in the latter stages of its development the skin of the young animal has a strongly marked pattern of longitudinal and transverse stripes, which disappear before hatching, giving place to the spotted skin of the adult animal. This Lizard is particularly interesting, owing to the fact of its being allied to the extinct reptiles of the Triassic age.—Daily Mail.
- ↑ Dieffenbach, 'Travels in New Zealand,' ii. p. 204.
