118 Transaction*, — -Zoolotiii . 



Abt. XXIII, — Notes on the Bones of a Species of Sphenodon, 

 (S. diversum, Col.,) apparently distinct from the Species 

 already known. By William Colenso, F.L.S., etc. 



[Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, lith December, 1885.] 



Towards the end of November, 1885, I received a small parcel 

 of little bones from Mr. Mills, of the wood and coal depot in 

 this town. It was brought to me by one of his workmen, who 

 said, " they were that morning found in the quarry, while 

 digging, at about forty-five feet below the surface." I was 

 not very well at the time, but on looking at them, I soon saw 

 they had belonged to some small reptile. They were in most 

 excellent preservation, even to their minutest parts and finest 

 processes, and were not fossilized ; but, most unfortunately, 

 they were very few of the whole skeleton. On making further 

 inquiry during the afternoon, I found that "the quarry" 

 (which I had supposed to be distant, on the west side of Scinde 

 Island and near the harbour, where the larger quarries are,) 

 was very near me, in Town Section No. 101, and opened on 

 to Tennyson-street South. On hearing this, I called my man, 

 (whom I could trust on such an errand,) and, showing him the 

 little lot of bones, sent him to the quarry to see if he could find 

 any more. On his return, he brought me three additional bones, 

 two of them heiner the pelvis bones of the skeleton. 



In more closely examining them on the following day, I was 

 pretty sure they were bones of a small lizard, and probably 

 a species of Sphenodon, but whether of the more common 

 species, S. punctatum, or of some other species, I could not 

 determine. 



I had Dr. Newman's interesting account of his anatomy of 

 a species of Sphenodon* (S. gnntheri, Buller,) but that treated 

 chiefly on its muscles ; and I had no works describing clearly 

 the osteology of the Sphenodon, neither were there any in the 

 library of the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, save a partial 

 drawing of its entire skull, in a plate in the " Zoology of the 

 Erebus and Terror Voyage," but without letterpress or de- 

 scription. 



Finding, however, that Dr. Gunther's full and able descrip- 

 tion of the anatomy of Sphenodon punctatum was in the library 

 of the Colonial Museum, where also was a preserved skeleton 

 of the animal (mentioned by Dr. Newman in his paper referred 

 to), I wrote to the Director of the Colonial Museum, Dr. Hector, 

 for the loan of both skeleton and book, and very recently I have 

 received both, for which kindness I wish to thank him. 



*«' Transactions N.Z. Inst.," vol. x., p. 222. 



