148 
NATURE 
[ Fune 23, 1870 
NN  — — — 
this bird living in the Society’s Gardens, but it is so far 
certain that our male is evidently very fond of grubs, and 
will search for them with eagerness in rotten wood, He 
does not, however, seem obliged to wait for a female of his 
own species to extract them when discovered, but picks 
them out for himself. A somewhat parallel case of dif- 
ference of the bill in the male and female occurs in the 
humming-birds of the genus Grypus.* 
4. A Tuatera lizard (Sfhenodon punctatum), purchased 
May 2oth. 
This not very attractive-looking lizard is really one 
of the most extraordinary reptiles now known to exist on 
the world’s surface. In several important particulars of 
structure it differs from every other known saurian, inso- 
much that Dr. Giinther, who has published an elaborate 
memoir on its anatomy,* has proposed to constitute it of 
itself a distinct order of reptilia, equal in systematic rank 
to the ophidians and saurians. It differs from all the known 
members of the latter order in having the quadrate bone 
firmly anchylosed to the skull, and in the entire absence 
of an intromittent copulatory organ. The vertebra are 
amphicelian, as in the Geckoid lizards. Dr. Gray first 
described and figured this reptile under the name //ad- 
teria (!) punctaia, and it hasbeen so generally designated 
until lately, when it was most fortunately discovered that 
the generic term SP/enodon had been previously applied 
toa specimen of its skull in the museum of the College 
of Surgeons. It has thus become possible not to be 
obliged to employ so vile and barbarous a term as Hatleria 
for the name of this important animal. Dr. Giinther, 
when he wrote his memoir, supposed that this reptile was 
extinct or nearly so. But one living example has reached 
England since that date, and more than one, I believe, in 
spirits. From an article published by Dr. Bennett, of 
Sydney, in the Aforning Herald of that city, it appears 
that so recently as December 1851, this lizard was abun- 
dant in one of the islands in the Bay of Plenty, on the north 
coast of New Zealand. The island in question is one of 
four small volcanic islands, distant about eight miles from 
the coast, and situated opposite to the mouth of the 
Wakatane river. A party of officers, who visited it upon 
the occasion referred to, are stated to have collected in 
half an hour nearly forty of these lizards of different sizes, 
varying from two feet long to three inches. They stated 
that the island seemed to be swarming with them, and with 
another lizard called the moko-moko (77/igua zeelandica). 
In the day-time these lizards are seen basking themselves 
in the sun on the bare rocks. Noon is therefore the best 
time to visit the islands. Itis stated that there are four 
small islands, on two of which Tuateras are found. 
I mention this fact in case it should be within the power 
of any of the Antipodean readers of NATURE to visit 
these islands, and obtain examples of this reptile. For 
although the British Museum has a good supply of 
specimens of it, yet the animal is a great desederatum 
elsewhere, and I believe there are no examples of S//e- 
nodon in any of the continental collections. 
DP. Tans: 
NOTES 
THE honorary degree of D.C.L. has been conferred, at the 
recent Commemoration, by the University of Oxford on the fol- 
lowing scientific men:—Sir William George Armstrong, C.B.; 
Sir James Alderson, M.D., President of the Royal College of 
Physicians ; John P. Gassiot, Vice-President of the Royal So- 
ciety ; Charles W. Siemens, F.R.S.; James Fergusson, F.R.S.; 
Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth, Bart., the Rey Henry Moseley, M.A., 
F.R.S., Canon of Bristol; Professor Hermann Helmholtz; 
George Edward Paget, M.D., President of the General Medi- 
cal Council ; Edward Frankland, F.R.S.; Henry Bence Jones, 
* See Gould’s Monograph of the Trochilidz, Introduction, p. xxxvi. 
+ Phil. Trans. 1867, p. 595- 
M.D., F.R.S.; Warren De La Rue, Vice-President of the Royal 
Society; William Iuggins, F.R.S., Secretary to the Royal 
Astronomical Society. The name of Charles Darwin, F.R.S., 
would have been included in the foregoing list (as stated in 
our last number) but he writes that his health is such ‘‘that 
he could not withstand the fatigue and excitement of receiving 
an honorary degree.” We understand that Prof. Helmholtz 
has also been prevented from attending. There is a rumour 
that Science would haye been even more brilliantly represented 
if the degree were the simple thing it is often supposed to be. It 
really stamps, it seems, a judicious mixture of celebrity and or- 
thodoxy ; ¢.g., either much orthodoxy and a little celebrity, or 
alittle orthodoxy and much celebrity, will qualify, but a dash 
of orthodoxy is de rigueur. The imprimatur, therefore, is of 
double value. In the present case, for instance, ic is proclaimed 
to the world that Mr. Darwin, for example, is not only Mr. 
Darwin, but that Dr. Pusey, and others even more skilled in 
heresy than he, consider him orthodox. On the whole we 
should prefer the abolition of tests even here, and one has only 
to go to Oxford and watch the present scientific activity, the 
magnificent museums and laboratories which are growing or 
have grown, to predict that the Oxford of a few years hence 
will be of the same opinion. 
MEETINGs of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction 
and the Advancement of Science have been held at 6, Old 
Palace Yard, S.W., on the 14th, 15th, 17th, and 21st of this 
month. Present:—The Duke of Devonshire, K.G.; the 
Marquis of Lansdowne; Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P.,F.R.S.; 
Sir J. P. Kay Shuttleworth, Bart.; Mr. B. Samuelson, M.P.; 
Dr. Sharpey, Sec., R.S.; Prof. Huxley, F.R.S.; Dr. W. A. 
Miller, Treas., R.S.; Prof. Stokes, Sec. R.S.; and the Secre- 
tary, Mr. J. Norman Lockyer, F.R.S. 
Mr. E. J. Stone, F.R.S., first assistant at the Greenwich 
Observatory, has been appointed Astronomer at the Cape of 
Good Hope. This appointment will be hailed with the liveliest 
satisfaction by all scientific men, and we may hope that the fine 
Observatory there may soon take high rank among similar esta- 
blishments. 
THE examiners for honours in the Natural Science School at 
the University of Oxford, viz., Henry J. S. Smith, Edward 
Chapman, and Joseph F. Payne, have made the following 
award :—Class 1. Walter William Fisher, Postmaster of Mer- 
ton College ; Edwin Harding Lendon, Gunsley Exhibitioner, 
University College; Charles Samuel Taylor, Commoner of 
Merton College. Class 2. John Fleming Hartley, Commoner 
of Brasenose College. Class 3. John Richardson Burrow, 
Thanet Exhibitioner of Queen’s College. Class 4. Nil. 
WE hear with great satisfaction that the Government of India 
has ordered the adoption of the metric system of weights and 
measures, 
A NEw Astronomical Observatory has been established by the 
Government of the Argentine Republic in South America, to be’ 
erected at Cordova, about the middle of the continent, on the 
margin of the Pampas, in lat. 313° S. Dr. B. A. Gould has 
been invited to organise it, and is going out for the special pur- 
pose of extending through the southern hemisphere the system 
of zones, which Bessel and Argelander have already carried from 
the north pole as far as 30° S. He hopes also to obtain some 
photometric determinations of the principalsouthern stars. The 
undertaking has been instituted and carried out entirely by the 
Government of the Argentine Republic, at the instance of the 
President, M. Sarmiento, and of Dr. Avellaneda, the Minister 
of Public Instruction ; but the various scientific institutions of 
the United States have aided the expedition greatly by loans of 
important and valuable instruments ; and Dr. Gould expresses his 
obligation to the Coast Survey, the “American Nautical Almanac, * 
— ee. 
