14 THE STORY OF REPTILE LIFE. 



wonderful creature, according to human stand- 

 ards, is one of the very bluest blood. Yet, 

 measured by the cold and impartial standards of 

 scientific criticism, it ranks among the lowest 

 instead of the highest of the Eeptile people. 

 The proud position of precedence is given to the 

 much less ancient house of the Crocodiles, these 

 having risen highest in the scale of evolution. 



Whether, as some hold, the Tuatera, or 

 Hatteria as it is also called, represents the stock 

 from whence our reptiles of to-day have been 

 derived, or whether it and its ancestor the 

 Palseohatteria are offshoots derived, in common 

 with the remaining living species, from the 

 problematical reptiles, is a point which we 

 do not propose to discuss here. Those who 

 would examine the evidence on this matter 

 will find much information ready to hand in 

 Dr Gadow's book, to which reference has 

 already been made. 



Whether the Tuatera is rightly regarded or 

 not as the representative of the ancestral stock 

 from which the existing reptiles are derived, it 

 is probably the most primitive of all living 

 species of this class. On this account, then, it 

 is fitting that it should be described, at least 

 briefly, in this opening chapter ; for many of its 

 peculiarities appear again, with modifications, in 

 other groups. 



Although the Tuatera is generally referred to 

 as a lizard, it is really nothing of the kind. It 

 is no more permissible to speak of it as a lizard, 

 than it would be to call it a tortoise or a croco- 

 dile. It stands by itself in a group apart from 



