A. C. L. G. Gunther. 



xv 



Zealand, the absence of the tailed forms from Tropical Africa, the Arctic 

 character of the Batrachian fauna of Japan, whereas its snakes are Tropical, 

 the absence of Hyla in India and Africa, the spread of the European Banco- 

 temporaria to the Nearctic region and its absence in the Neotropical, and the 

 resemblance of the Batrachian fauna of South America to that of Australia, 

 are a few of the salient points of this important communication. In after 

 years he was enabled to supply Mr. Darwin with so many interesting facts 

 relative to the reproduction and the wedding-dress of fishes, amphibians and 

 reptiles, and to such an extent that Darwin wrote " My essay, as far as 

 fishes, batrachians, and reptiles are concerned, will be in fact yours, only 

 written by me." 



To Alfred Bussel Wallace's 1 Geographical Distribution of Animals ' 

 Dr. Gunther contributed much important information concerning the distribu- 

 tion and classification of fishes and reptiles, the gigantic tortoises of Galapagos 

 and the Mascarene Islands, the height to which reptiles reach on the 

 Himalayas, and on the distribution of fishes — especially the identity or close 

 affinity of those occurring on each side of the Isthmus of Panama, rendering 

 it probable that Central America has been partially submerged up to com- 

 paratively recent geological times. His researches on the freshwater fishes of 

 the same region would point to a like conclusion, seeing that a number of 

 fish-faunas can be distinguished, corresponding to some extent with the 

 islands into which the country would be divided by a subsidence of about 

 2000 feet, the most important of the divisions separating Honduras from 

 Costa Bica. 



His work on the Beptiles of British India, published by the Bay Society 

 in 1864, is a systematic treatise of great merit, for not only does the author 

 give the results of his labours in the British Museum, but he examined every 

 available collection at home, and included those of Burma, Siam, Cochin 

 China, and Southern China. The philosophical spirit in which he dealt with 

 the genera and larger groups is manifest throughout, and the 26 lithographic 

 plates, chiefly by Ford,* can hardly be surpassed. The work is a monument 

 of patient labour, wide knowledge, and scrupulous care. 



His careful account of the anatomy of Hatteria (Sphenodon), in 1867, 

 enabled him to make a step in advance in the classification of recent Beptilia, 

 a step which zoologists have since followed in connection with' the characters 

 of the Bhynchocephalia. The fixed quadrate, cartilaginous ali- and orbito- 

 sphenoids, the union of the mandibular rami by ligament, the uncinate 

 processes of the ribs, double temporal bars, amphicoelous vertebrae and 

 absence of copulatory organs, showed characters of ordinal importance. 

 Besearches since' that period have borne out the prediction of the author 

 that discoveries of extinct allied forms would further add to our know- 

 ledge. Thus the group of the Prosauri with its sub-order Proterosauri 

 including Palceokatieria from the Lower Bed Sandstone of Saxony, and 



* He greatly pleased Mr. Darwin by getting this skilful artist, in 1870, to do his wood- 

 engravings. 



