4 PROF. G. B. HOWES AND MR. H. H. SWINNERTON ON THE 
Order, and of Sphenodon, its living representative. Since Sphenodon thus occupies 
the afore-mentioned primitive position among living reptiles—not to say among the 
Sauropsida as a whole—and since our classificatory systems of the Vertebrata, to be of 
avail, must be primarily based upon facts concerning parts capable of fossilization, the 
special interest attaching to the study of the development of the Sphenodon skeleton 
becomes sufficiently evident. And, as involving the Order Rhynchocephalia, the fact 
that in one of the most recent, and that which we have found the most rational and 
serviceable of classifications thereof!, a distinction has become possible between a 
higher and a lower sub-order, in itself raises the interesting question whether in the 
development of Sphenodon, a member of the higher sub-order, there may not be passed 
through phases characteristic of the lower, to-day unrepresented. 
During the thirty years afore-named no available opportunity has been lost by 
workers of all nationalities to study the habits and anatomy of Sphenodon, and a list 
of the resulting papers is appended to this Memoir (infra, p. 71). Most organs and 
systems have received attention. ‘The most exhaustive contribution is that of the 
Japanese Osawa, which is a laborious anatomical treatise extending over 438 pp. 
of the Archiv fir Mikroskopische Anatomie (cf. list, Osawa, 96-98); and, while 
grateful to him for this, it is with much astonishment that we have to record his 
final conclusion (98 ». p. 352, and 98°) that Sphenodon is an Agamid—a reversion to 
the view of Gray (1831), adopted and afterwards forsaken by Cope’, revived by 
Peters (70), and rejected by Giinther (69. p. 624) °. 
2, MATERIAL. 
In 1894, when Professor Dendy was appointed to the Chair of Biology in the 
Canterbury College of the New Zealand University, one of us, in regular correspondence 
with him, sought to impress upon him the desirability of doing all in his power to 
secure without delay material for the study of the development of Sphenodon, not 
knowing at the time that our mutual friend, Prof. Baldwin Spencer, F.R.S., of 
Melbourne, had also approached him on the subject. With what enthusiasm and at 
what personal cost he responded to the desire, his published memoirs (Dendy, 98, 
99°, 99>) amply testify. On hearing of his success in the field, no time was lost 
‘ Boulenger, G. A.: Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (6) vol. xi. 1893, p. 204. 
> Cope, E. D.: cf. Proc. Acad. N.S. Philad. 1864, p. 227, and Proc. Americ. Assoc. vol. xix. 1870, 
p. 233. 
* It has always been to me inexplicable why Huxley should have refused to admit the validity of the Order 
Khynchocephalia. Well do I remember how, in conversation, he once remarked to me that ‘ Sphenodon is a 
lizard and only a lizard!” but, this notwithstanding, his final printed statement and proposal to create, for the 
reception of Hyperodapedon, Rhynchosawrus, and Sphenodon, the group of the “Sphenodontina” (Quart. 
Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xiii. 1891, p. 691) would seem indicative of a compromise suggestive of an approaching 
conviction.—G. B. H. 
