488 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Walter Rothschild: A life-size photograph of a very large Tortoise (Testudo 
daudinii). From the President of the American Museum of Natural 
History, New York: A series of thirteen large photographs of skeletons 
and restorations of extinct Tertiary Mammalia. 
For the past two years Prof. Dendy, of Canterbury College, New Zealand, 
has been minutely investigating the development of the Tuatara Lizard 
(Sphenodon punctatus), declared to be the most remarkable reptile now living 
in New Zealand ; and a detailed account of the results of his researches has 
just arrived in England, and will shortly be published. Although the Lizard 
in question is said to be the oldest existing type of reptile up to the present, 
little has been known of its life-history, as it is very rare, and shy and 
retiring in its habits. The Tuatara Lizard was first mentioned in a diary 
kept by Mr. Anderson, the companion of Captain Cook; but the first 
really detailed account of the reptile was given by Dieffenbach in 18438,* 
when he said :—“ I had been apprised of the existence of a large Lizard 
which the natives call Tuatéra, or Narara, and of which they are much 
afraid.” Owing to the rarity of the Tuatara Lizard, the New Zealand 
Government passed an Act to prohibit the taking or slaying of the reptile, 
but, as usual, forgot one of the most important points, namely, the insertion 
of a clause forbidding the collecting of the eggs. Fortunately for the 
Tuatara, however, Mr. P. Henaghan, the principal keeper on Stephen’s 
Island, appears at present to be the only man who knows where to look for 
them, although it is stated that two German collectors have been lately 
making vigorous but vain efforts to obtain specimens of the eggs. Prof. 
Dendy had permission granted him by the Government to collect both eggs 
and adults, and with the help of Mr. Henaghan has been so successful in 
his investigations of the life-history of the interesting reptile, that many 
new and important facts will now be made known to the scientific world. 
The adult animal has a spotted skin, and a crest of separate white flat 
sharp spines, and is possessed of three sets of teeth. On Stephen’s Island 
the eggs of the Lizard are found to be laid in November, and the embryo 
pass the winter in a state of hybernation unknown to any other vertebrate 
embryo, and do not emerge from the egg until nearly thirteen months have 
elapsed. One curious fact that has come to light is that in the latter stages 
of its development the skin of the young animal has a strongly marked 
pattern of longitudinal and transverse stripes, which disappear before 
hatching, giving place to the spotted skin of the adult animal. This Lizard 
is particularly interesting, owing to the fact of its being allied to the extinct 
reptiles of the Triassic age.—Daily Mail. 
* Dieffenbach, ‘ Travels in New Zealand,’ ii. p. 204, 
