620 LIZARDS TllADITIONS — CURRENTS. Jan. 



and as big round as a man"'s body. He said that they some- 

 times seize and devour men ; that they burrow in the ground ; 

 and that they are killed by making fires at the mouths of the 

 holes. We could not be mistaken as to the animal ; for, with 

 his own hand, he drew a very good representation of a lizard 

 on a piece of paper ; as also of a snake, in order to show what 

 he meant.'"' — (Cook's third Voyage, chap. VII.) Perhaps this 

 huge kind of lizard has become extinct ; but it is possible that 

 it yet exists on the southern (or middle) island. In its bur- 

 rowing we are reminded of the great lizard, or iguana, of the 

 Galapagos Islands ; but the assertion that it sometimes seizes 

 men seems to refer to an alligator, or crocodile. Cook heard 

 of it shortly after leaving Queen Charlotte Sound, from a 

 native of the southern large island.* If such a reptile ever 

 existed upon the northern island it must have been extermi- 

 nated by the earliest aboriginal settlers, as they have now no 

 tradition of any animals except dogs, pigs, rats, mice, and small 

 lizards. Pigs and dogs, say the natives, were brought from the 

 north, in canoes. 



On New Year s day, while in sight of the islets called 

 Three Kings, we passed through several tide ' races,** one 

 of wliich was rather ' heavy and would have been impass- 

 able for a boat. These races moved towards the north while 

 we could trace their progress. The temperature of the water 

 fell six degrees after passing through the principal one. 

 Next day, at noon, we found that during the past twenty-four 

 hours we had been set as many miles southward (S.S.E.), and 

 hence I am inclined to infer that we were influenced by re- 

 gular tide-streams, rather than by currents setting always in 

 one direction. To the succeeding day at noon (3d) we were 

 set only seven miles, by the water, and that due east. After- 

 wards, in our passage to Port Jackson, we had alternately 

 northerly and south-easterly currents of about ten miles a day, 

 and it was easy to tell which current we were in, by the tem- 

 perature of the sea : — while the stream set from the north, the 

 water thermometer showed about ; but when the current 



* At New Zealand the southern large island is usually called the 



iddlo Island, 



