294 THE ANIMALS OF NEW ZEALAND 



and a plumage of the general character of that of a cassowary or emeu. In addi- 

 tion to countless skeletons and bones, the feathers and eggs, as well as portions of 

 the skin and tendons, have been obtained from the old Maori cooking-places. 



An apparently insignificant New Zealand reptile resembling a 

 rather large lizard in general appearance is one of the most in- 

 teresting animals in the whole world, for it is the last survivor not only of a 

 family, but also of a distinct ordinal group, well represented in past epochs of 

 the earth's history. To call this reptile, of which the scientific designation is 

 Hatteria punctata, a lizard is a misnomer, for it has nothing to do with that 

 group, and it is therefore much better that it should be known by its Maori 

 name of tuatera. Although it formerly occurred on the mainland, where it was 

 probably killed off by pigs, the tuatera is now confined to two small islands off 

 the coast of the North Island, where it is yearly becoming scarcer. Measuring 

 about 18 inches in length, the tuatera is easily recognised by the row of 

 horny spines running from the crown of the head to the tip of the tail, where 

 they become reduced to knobs. It is to the presence of these spines that the 

 reptile owes its native name. Tuateras spend most of the day in sleep, and feed 

 on animal food, which they capture alive. Between November and January the 

 females lay about half a score of long, oval, white, hard-shelled eggs, which are 

 deposited in holes in the sand where they can be reached by the sun's warmth. 

 Tuateras are, as a rule, slow and sluggish in their movements, and are capable of 

 remaining for hours under water without coming up to breathe. They excavate 

 their own burrows, the accommodation of which is generally shared by a pair of 

 petrels, and the terminal chamber measures only some IS inches in length by 

 12 in width and 6 in height. 



The palate of the tuatera is armed on each side with a double row of closely 

 approximated cutting teeth, between which bite a very similar row of teeth 

 surmounting the sharp-edged lower jaw. Skulls of the same general type, but 

 in some cases of much larger size and with a more complex type of dentition, 

 are met with in the Trias formation of Europe and India, and have been described 

 under the name of Rhynchosaurus and Hyjoeroclapedon. These extinct tuateras 

 attest the antiquity of the type of which the New Zealand species is the sole 

 survivor. There is, however, other evidence of the antiquity of the Rhyncho- 

 cephalia, as the order to which all these tuateras pertain has been named. For 

 if the head of a New Zealand tuatei-a be carefully dissected, it will be found to 

 possess distinct remnants of a median Cyclopean eye; a structure which, judging 

 from the aperture in the bones of the forehead for its reception, appears to have 

 been common to a large number of extinct reptiles and salamanders. 



Apart from the tuatera, the only reptiles inhabiting New Zealand are about 

 a dozen species of lizards, half of these being geckos belonging to the genus 

 Naultinus, which is unknown in any other part of the world. The solitary New 

 Zealand frog, Liopelma hochstetteri, likewise represents a peculiar genus pertaining 

 to the southern family D iscoglossidce. 



