The Conquest of the Land 



to a few small islands in the Bay of Plenty, North Island, where 

 it enjoys Government protection. It is, as the illustration in 

 Fig. 96 shows, a lizard-like creature, and reaches a length of 

 about two feet. It lives in burrows near the shore, and feeds on 

 small animals that are left behind by the tide. The Sphenodon, 

 as zoologists have named it, has apparently been preserved 

 owing to the absence of competition by the mammals, and 

 by adopting the rather curious mode of life just described. 

 In all its features, but especially in the primitive condition 

 of its vertebrae, it is very much lower than any other living 

 reptile, and it connects the higher groups with the Amphibia. 

 Many closely related fossil species are known, one of which is 

 shown in Fig. 97. 



To the lay mind the distinctions between the Amphibia and 

 the reptiles are not very obvious, and indeed in the older classifica- 

 tions the former group was not separated from the latter. The 

 differences between a reptile and a bird, on the other hand, are 

 very striking. It might therefore be regarded as a matter for 

 surprise that zoologists now make the greater distinction between 

 the Amphibia and the reptiles, grouping the former in one great 

 class with the fishes, the latter in a second great section with the 

 birds. But in fact there are many fundamental points of agree- 

 ment between reptiles and birds, and it is impossible to doubt 

 that the latter have sprung from a reptilian stock. Indeed, a 

 most interesting connecting link is known, in the fossil Archiop- 

 teryx shown in Fig. 98, of which only two specimens have 

 been found, and which is the only creature of its type of which 

 we have any record. In all its skeletal features, the Archiopteryx 

 is reptilian, and it would undoubtedly have been classed as a 

 new type of reptile but for the obvious and unmistakable traces 

 of feathers. From what particular class of reptiles the birds 

 have sprung is not known. 



The birds have assumed the position of almost unquestioned 

 masters of the air, but like other great groups they show possi- 

 bilities of evolution in other directions wherever opportunity 

 offers, and types like the kiwi and the penguin shown in Figs. 100 



119 



