CHAP. XXI 



NEW ZEALAND 



483 



genera of birds peculiar to the Australian continent 

 (with Tasmania), many of them almost or quite con- 

 fined to its temperate portions, and that no single one 

 of these should be represented in temperate New Zea- 

 land.^ The affinities of the living and more highly 

 organised, no less than those of the extinct and wing- 

 less birds, strikingly accord with the line of communi- 

 cation indicated by the deep submarine bank connecting 

 these temperate islands with the tropical parts of the 

 Australian region. 



The reptiles, so far as they go, are quite in accordance 

 with the birds. The lizards belong to two genera, 

 Lygosoma, which has a wide range in all the tropics as 

 well as in Australia ; and Naultinus, a genus peculiar 

 to New Zealand, but belonging to a family — Geckonidse 

 — spread over the whole of the warmer parts of the world. 

 Australia, with New Guinea, on the other hand, has a 

 peculiar family, and no less than twenty-one peculiar 

 genera of lizards, many of which are confined to its 

 temperate regions, but no one of them extends to tem- 

 perate New Zealand.^ The extraordinary lizard-like 

 Hatteria punctata of New Zealand forms of itself a 

 distinct order of reptiles, in some respects intermediate 

 between lizards and crocodiles, and having therefore no 

 affinity with any living animal. 



The only representative of the Amphibia in New 

 Zealand is a solitary frog of a peculiar genus {Liopelma 

 hochstetteri) ; but it has no affinity for any of the 

 Australian frogs, which are numerous, and belong to 

 eleven different families ; while the Liopelma belongs 



^ In my Geographical Distribution of Animals (I. p. 541) I have given 

 two peculiar Australian genera [Orthonyx and Trihonyx) as occurring in 

 New Zealand. But the former has been found in New Guinea, while the 

 New Zealand bird is considered to form a distinct genus, Clitonyx ; and 

 the latter inhabits Tasmania, and was recorded from New Zealand through 

 an error. (See lUs, 1873, p. 427.) 



2 The peculiar genera of Australian lizards according to Boulenger's 

 British Museum Catalogue, are as follows : — Family Geckonid^ : Neph- 

 rurus, Rhynchoedura, Heteronota, Diplodactylus, (Edura. Family Pygo- 

 PODiD^ (peculiar) : Pygopus, Cryptodelma, Delma, Pletholax, Aprasia. 

 Family Agamid^ : Chelosania, Amphibolurus, Tympanocryptis, Diporo- 

 phora, Chlamydosaurus, Moloch, Oreodeira. Family Scincid.e : Egerina, 

 Trachysaurus, Hemisphsenodon, Family doubtful : Ophiopsiseps. 



