FOOD OF VARIOUS ANIMALS AND BIRDS 



and placed in other collections, many have lived for years 

 under my treatment, and several are now in my charge. 



I have fed them on a variety of different kinds of food. 

 They will eat raw meat, living frogs, small lizards, earth- 

 worms, mealworms, snails, young birds, and also mice. 



I have tried them with a great many kinds of vegetable 

 food, but I have never found them to eat any kind what- 

 ever. I have heard from persons who have kept these 

 animals that they fed them upon lettuce-leaves and fruit. 

 I have always had much doubt about their feeding upon 

 this kind of food, and I found the animals died after a few 

 months of this treatment, and I feel certain they were 

 starved to death. 



It is well known that many of the animals of this 

 family can exist for a very long period without food, and 

 consequently persons not well acquainted with this fact 

 were led to believe that the tuatera fed upon the vege- 

 table food, because it lived so long. 



In the New Zealand Court of the Indian and Colonial 

 Exhibition, South Kensington, was a model of the rocks 

 and small caves inhabited by the tuatera lizards. I 

 noticed also that these rocks and caves were frequented 

 by small sea-birds, which selected the same places for 

 breeding. I have no doubt whatever that the lizards 

 would find the eggs and young of these small sea-birds 

 most excellent eating. 



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