X INTRODUCTION 



Before concluding his introduction the author would 

 say a word regarding the Order Rhynchocephalia, only 

 one species of which has survived to the present, the 

 Tuatera of New Zealand ; the technical name is Spheno- 

 don punctatus. The author has removed this strange 

 creature from the body of the work to follow, as it would 

 appear incongruous to place a lizard-like form before 

 the turtles and tortoises — where it actually belongs. It 

 is hterally a ghost of the past, the oldest surviving type 

 of reptile. According to Boulenger, it is possible that 

 the common ancestors of the turtles and tortoises, the 

 Plesiosauria (now extinct) and the lizards wovild fall 

 in the Order to which this reptile belongs — an Order 

 of fossils, rock-bound for ages, that have in turn given 

 rise and brought extinction to other Orders — yet per- 

 mitted one remnant to survive, apparently immune to 

 the dominant sway of evolution. 



The Tuatera resembles in form stout-bodied modern 

 lizards which we call iguanas ; this resemblance is further 

 intensified by a row of spines upon the back. It is dark 

 olive, the sides sprinkled with pale dots. The eye has 

 a cat-like pupil. Large specimens are two and a half 

 feet long. While a superficial resemblance might tend 

 to group this reptile with the lizards, its skeleton and 

 anatomy show it to belong to a different part of tech- 

 nical classification. And now, as the author completes 

 this work, it seems possible the Order Rhynchocephalia 

 will soon have to be stricken from our lists of living rep- 

 tiles. In comparatively recent years, the Tuatera was 

 abundant on the larger islands of New Zealand, but the 

 cultivation of land, the introduction of swine, and many 

 other causes emanating from the all-powerful advance 

 of civilization have annihilated the reptile from all but 



