17 

 t 



Art. II. — On the Tuatara (Hatteria punctata, Gray) ; or Great Fringed 

 Lizard of New Zealand. By F. J. Knox, L.R.C.S.E. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, July 17, 1869.] 



By the kindness of Dr. Hector, I have been enabled to peruse a recent 

 minute description of the Tuatara, or Fringed Lizard. I take the more 

 interest in this truly scientific memoir of Dr. Albert Giinther, as it brings to 

 my recollection a circumstance which occurred, now twenty-six years ago. In 

 1812, a family of the name of Houghton resided on Somes' Island, and, 

 amongst the usual accompaniments of the human family, had a few rabbits. 

 The family shortly after left the island, and took up their residence in 

 Wellington. On leaving, a daughter of Mr. Houghton missed a favourite 

 rabbit, and commencing a thorough search, put her hand into one of the 

 numerous sancl holes, and grasped what she joyfully supposed to be her lost 

 rabbit, but found it was a live specimen of the Tuatara. The specimen lived 

 for some time, but receiving — owing to the very primitive condition of the 

 colony — by no means the attention it deserved, it died ; and I attributed its 

 death to too sudden an exposure to the noonday sun, I however was enabled 

 to anatomise it. The skeleton, more especially, was preserved with the 

 greatest care, and so much of its anatomy as would preserve was sent to the 

 British Museum. 



Until lately, I have never seen another specimen, but many have, 

 however, been procured since the establishment of this Museum. I am now 

 able to bring under the notice of the Society, the result of a careful anatomical 

 examination of two specimens. These observations have been drawn lip from 

 my notes on the original specimen sent to the British Museum, in 1842, and 

 from the dissection of the two specimens placed at my disposal by Dr. Hector, 

 the skeletons and soft parts of which I have placed in the Museum. Both 

 specimens were females ; the ova varying in size from almost microscopic, 

 to two lines in diameter, and thus indicating a maturity in the individual 

 specimens. 



I shall now state a few of the points in which I differ from Dr. Giinther. 



1st. In the description of the head, it appears to me that he has lost sight 

 of the basis on which all researches in " comparative anatomy" is founded, i.e., 

 that of man, as compared with other animals, and adopts a nomenclature of 

 such complexity, as would confine the future investigations into the history of 

 the animal creation, to the mere compiler, the closet naturalist. I take as a 

 sample the os quadratum, p. 4, which he describes as a distinct elementary 

 bone, without stating that it is merely a portion of the human temporal 

 bone. The scientific anatomist, in his researches into the structure of the 

 animal kingdom, knows that the temporal bone undergoes almost innumerable 

 changes during its development from the embryo, and is composed, even at an 

 advanced period of life, in man, of various separate centres of ossification, 

 deposited in a cartilaginous basis ; in fishes, uniting with other bones of the 

 cranium ; in birds, remaining separate ; in reptiles, uniting with other bones, 

 but still readily recognizable as being that centre of ossification in the temporal 

 bone in man, articulating with the lower jaw. 



The vomer (p. 5) is another example in which Dr. Giinther evidently 

 proposes to give a new nomenclature to every animal. 



As a comparative anatomist, I should look for the vomer in all animals as 

 forming the mesial division between the right and left nostrils ; for instance, 

 in the Cetacea (adult) I find an extensive union, and even a difficulty in 

 naming the bones after the universally received type ; but it matters not, 

 pi'ovided the bone forms the division of the nostrils, and thus performs the 



