456 
ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
[part hi 
No country on the globe can offer such an extraordinary set of 
birds as are here depicted. 
Reptiles . — These consist almost wholly of lizards, there being 
no land-snakes and only one frog. Twelve species of lizards are 
known, belonging to three genera, one of which is peculiar, as 
are all the species. Hinulia, with two species, and Mocoa , with 
four species (one of which extends to the Chatham Islands), 
belong to the Scincidae ; both are very wide-spread genera and 
occur in Australia. The peculiar genus Naultinus , with six species, 
belongs to the Geckotidse, a family spread over the whole world. 
The most extraordinary and interesting reptile of New Zea- 
land is, however, the Hatteria punctata , a lizard-like animal 
living in holes, and found in small islands on the north-east 
coast, and more rarely on the main land. It is somewhat inter- 
mediate in structure between lizards and crocodiles, and also has 
bird-like characters in the form of its ribs. It constitutes, not 
only a distinct family, Rhyncocephalidse, but a separate order of 
reptiles, 11 hyncocephalina. It is quite isolated from all other 
members of the class; and is probably a slightly modified repre- 
sentative of an ancient and generalised form, which has been 
superseded in larger areas by the more specialized lizards and 
saurians. 
The only representatives of the Ophidia are two sea-snakes 
of Australian and Polynesian species, and of no geographical 
interest. 
Amphibia . — The solitary frog indigenous to New Zealand, 
belongs to a peculiar genus, Liopelma, and to the family Bom- 
buratoridfe, otherwise confined to Europe and temperate South 
America. 
Fresh-water Fishes . — There are, according to Captain Hutton, 
15 species of fresh-water fish in New Zealand, belonging to 7 
genera ; six species, and one genus ( Rctropinna ), being peculiar. 
Rdropinna richardsoni belongs to the Salmonidse, and is the 
only example of that family occurring in the Southern hemi- 
sphere, where it is confined to New Zealand and the Chatham 
Islands. The wide distribution of Galaxias attenuatus — from the 
