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the neat genus Naultinus , peculiar to New Zealand, the sluggish 
character of which reminds somewhat of our salamander. With 
regard to the land-tortoise found on the Wanganui River in Cook’s 
Strait, Mr. Ch. Heaphy, the author of the statement, informed 
me that he really had found the tortoise there, hut that he is 
now fully convinced that it had got there by mere accident, 
1 laving probably escaped from a whaler during its stay there. The 
natives had never been aware of the existence of ‘such an animal. 
A venomous serpent is likewise said to have been left there by an 
English captain, intentionally, but luckily it does not seem to have 
found a living there, as nothing further has been hitherto dicovered 
of snakes. 
The ringed sea-serpent ( Pelamys bicolor), which is found from 
the Indian Ocean to the eastern-most groups of Polynesia, has also 
been found about New Zealand; but whether New Zealand is its 
southern-most limit, or whether it was transported thither by acci- 
dent, remains yet to be decided. We ourselves met on board the 
Novara with a very instructive case of transportation. One morn- 
ing in one of the cabins such a snake was found, which, as un- 
observed as it had got into the ship , could have slipped out equally 
unobserved into the sea at some far distant place. 
As to fishes , the bays and coasts of New Zealand are teeming 
with them; and there are about 100 species enumerated in the 
catalogues. But just as the forests are destitute of game, so 
a salamander, which a man named Hawkins is said to have seen and even caught 
in the Greenstone Lake, and repeated reports are spread abroad about t his large, 
black salamander. A very trust-worth sheep-keeper of the Province Canterbury re- 
lated the following incident to my friend Dr. Iiaast. It was after the fall-overflows, — 
which usually carry large quantities of wood from the mountains into a lake close 
to his station, — that he was engaged in gathering such drift-logs to have a supply 
of fire-wood for the winter. He had pulled one of those logs, — which, as he ob- 
served afterwards, was hollow at the lower end — about half out of the water, when 
a black animal, 4 to 5 feet long, and resembling a crocodile, crept out, which 
immediately disappeared in the water. The narrator added as a special remark, lhat 
it was out of the question to suppose that what lie saw was one of the large eels, 
such as are frequently found, sometimes 6 feet in length and weighing 20 pounds; 
he himself being a passionate eel-catcher, and consequently thoroughly acquainted 
with that animal. 
