290 



NATURAL HISTORi'. 



dont, that is to say, they are placed in a furrow on the internal edge of the jaws, the roots adhering 

 to the bone by their outsides and below. No teeth are found on the palate, and the creatures catch 

 their prey with their jaws and teeth, and bolt it whole. All the family are harmless, active little 

 things, but popular ignorance and superstition have given them very bad characters, and they are said 

 to produce eruptions of the skin if they run over anybody with their soft, flabby, viscous little toes. 



One of the French Geckos belongs to the genus Platydactylus, which is also represented in Spain,* 

 and has the fourth and fifth digits only clawed, but the others of the genus in China, Egypt, and 

 some other places on the Continent have only one digit without a claw. 



All the Geckos are fierce, and love fighting, and rob each other, if possible, of their prey. They 

 are carnivorous, and will kill and eat their smaller fellows, and even their own and others' tails fall 

 victims. They will come to be fed at appointed times if some care is taken. 



A species which has claws projecting beyond all its thick expanded fingers is found in the hotter 

 districts near the Mediterranean Sea. The scales on the under part of the tail are not unlike 

 those of Serpents, and the underneath part of the disc-like digits has the little plates separated by a 

 middle line. The wart-like tubercles on its skin, and the nature of the clawed fingers, have given it 

 the name of the Hemidactylus verruculatus. It is also known as the Turkish Hemidactyle. 



The Common East Indian Gecko is very widely distributed in British India, Siam, Cochin 

 China, and Southern China, and in the Archipelago. It is not found in Ceylon.f It has the 

 habits of the family, but it springs on to its prey like a little Carnivore. 



The Flying Gecko { is a very handsome kind, of some seven inches long, and is found in Java 

 and in a few ottar islands of the Archipelago. The expansions of its skin have the same purpose as 

 the corresponding structures of the Dragons and Flying Squirrels. In leaping they are expanded by 

 the pi-essure of the air from below, and act as a parachute, and when the creatiu-e is at rest they are 

 kept in close contact with the body. Cantor says that these Geckos have some power of colour- 

 changing. 



SUB-ORDER RHYNCHOCEPHALA. THE BEAKED LIZARDS. 



THE TUAT^RA, OR HATTERIA, OR THE SPHENODON LIZARD. 



This remarkable reptile from New Zealand was first mentioned in a diary by Mr. Anderson, 

 the companion of Captain Cook, but Dieffenbach gave the first coherent narrative about it (1843) :~ 

 " I had been apprised of the existence of a large Lizard which the natives called Tuatera, or Narara, 

 with a general name, and of which they were much afraid." He did not find it so common ; and from 

 all he could glean, it appears that it was common formerly in the islands, lived in holes, often in 

 sandhills near the shore, and that the natives killed it for food. Owing to this latter cause, and no 



doubt to the cultivation of pigs also, it is now very 

 scarce. The specimen he had was extremely sluggish, 

 and could be handled without any attempt at remon- 

 strance or biting. This Lizard has a large head and a 

 great eye, and a crest of separate, white, flat, sharp 

 spines. 



We owe to Dr. Giinther a magnificent description of 

 the anatomy of the Sphenodon and its comparison with 

 the extinct reptiles of the ages of the Trias, which are 

 called Rhynchosaurus and Hyperodapedon. It is an 

 acrodont, and the teeth are so united with a sharp edge of 

 the maxillary and palatine bones as to appear mere projec- 

 tions of them. These edges are, as it were, hard and 

 polished, and are used as cutters when the teeth have 

 worn off. The pre-maxillary bones have a beak-like form, and their lai-ge teeth (notched at 

 the crown) become fused with their substance, and somewhat resemble those of a Rodent in 

 shape. There is a remarkable row of teeth on the palate-bone, and the teeth of the lower 



* Platydactylus fascicularis, known as the Gecko des nmraiUfs. t Gecko yuttatus. 



+ Ptychozoon homalocephalum. 



SKULL OV SPHENODON, OR HATTEKIA, SHOWING 



ACRODONT JAW. (After Giinther.) 





