FOOD OF VARIOUS ANIMALS AND BIRDS 
and placed in other collections, many have lived for years 
under iny treatment, and several are now in my charge. 
I have fed them on a variety of different kinds of food. 
They will eat raw meat, living frogs, small lizards, earth- 
worms, mealworms, snails, young birds, and also mice. 
I have tried them with a great many kinds of vegetable 
food, but I have never found them to eat any kind what- 
ever. I have heard from persons who have kept these 
animals that they fed them upon lettuce-leaves and fruit. 
I have always had much doubt about their feeding upon 
this kind of food, and I found the animals died after a few 
months of this treatment, and I feel certain they were 
starved to death. 
It is well known that many of the animals of this 
family can exist for a very long period without food, and 
consequently persons not well acquainted with this fact 
were led to believe that the tuatera fed upon the vege- 
table food, because it lived so long. 
In the New Zealand Court of the Indian and Colonial 
Exhibition, South Kensington, was a model of the rocks 
and small caves inhabited by the tuatera lizards. I 
noticed also that these rocks and caves were frequented 
by small sea-birds, which selected the same places for 
breeding. I have no doubt whatever that the lizards 
would find the eggs and young of these small sea-birds 
most excellent eating. 
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