4 PKOF. G. B. HOWES AND MR. II. JI. SWINNEETON ON THE 



Order, and of Sphenodcju, its living' representative. Since Sphenodon thus occupies 

 tlie aforc-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 tlie study of the development of the Sphenodon skeleton 

 becomes sufficiently evident. And, as involving the Order Rhynchoccplialia, 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 

 liigher 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 cliaracteristic of the lower, to-day unrepresented. 



During the thirty years afore-named no available opportunity has been lost by 

 Avorkers 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 4.j8 pp. 

 of the Aixhiv fiir Mikroskopische Anatomie [ef. list, Osawa, 96-98) ; and, while 

 srateful 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 

 Feters (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. & Hag. Nat. Hist. (G) vol. xi. 1893, p. 204. 



' Cope, E. D.: c/". Proe. Acad. N. S. Philad. ISG-i, p. 227, and Proc. Americ. Assoc, vol. six. 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 B ijperodapedon, Rhyvchosaurus, and Splienodon, the group of the " Sphenodontina " (Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xliii. 1891, p. 691) would seem indicative of a compromise suggestive of an approaching 

 conviction. — G. E. H. 



