The tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus, a nocturnal reptile, is one of New Zealand's most unique animals. All other living reptiles are classified into three orders, but the tuatara is the only surviving representative of an otherwise extinct order of “beak-headed” reptiles, the Rhynchocephalia, which lived some 200 million years ago in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, and became extinct more than 100 million years ago.

The tuatara closely resembles some lizards in appearance, but, despite the superficial similarity, certain skeletal and anatomical features distinguish the tuatara from the lizards. The tuatara reaches a length of almost 2 ft, and has a lizard-shaped body with a crest of softish spines forming a midrow along the back of the head, and a row of smaller spines along the middle of the back. The spines, the skin folds of the neck, and the total weight and length all reach greater sizes in males than females. Adult males weigh up to 1,000 grams, almost twice the weight reached by females. The animal is usually an olive-green colour but specimens vary from slate grey to almost brick red and all have the background colour broken by numerous small lighter spots. The well-developed pineal organ, or so-called “third eye”, prominent in the young tuatara, is also found in lizards. So far as is known it does not function as a light receptor.

Once the tuatara inhabited the mainland of New Zealand but is now found only on 20 small exposed islands which are covered to some extent by scrub or low coastal forest. One group of islands is in Cook Strait, the others lie off the North Island between North Cape and East Cape. The tuataras make burrows in loose soil or use the burrows of sea birds such as prions, shearwaters, and diving petrels, and may even share burrows with birds incubating eggs or rearing chicks.

Mating is believed to occur in January, and between October and December the females lay from eight to 15 oval eggs in a clutch at the bottom of a shallow excavation about 5 in. deep. The parent abandons the eggs after covering them with earth. Some 15 months later the young cut their way through the flexible parchment-like shell of the egg with the small temporary “egg breaker” at the tip of the snout. The earth-coloured young then butt their way through the soil to the surface where they seek cover in rock crevices, under logs, or in small burrows which they excavate for themselves. Tuataras only become sexually mature after about 20 years of growth, and continue to grow slowly all their lives. Very large tuataras could be more than a century old, for the tuatara has one of the slowest rates of growth of any reptile.

Young tuataras feed readily on small ground animals, such as earthworms and small insects. Adults forage for wetas (wingless crickets), beetles, snails, and, occasionally, the eggs and young of petrels. As most of the islands lack streams or pools, tuataras probably get most of their water from their food or dew. Tuataras are active at night, remaining active in temperatures as low as 7°c and they can tolerate high temperatures for brief periods. W. H. Dawbin (1962) gives a detailed account of the life history and habits of the tuatara based on extensive field observations.

The New Zealand Government rigidly protects tuataras to ensure the continued existence of this species, a living relic of an ancient world.

by Richard Essex Barwick, M.SC.(N.Z.), Lecturer, Zoology Department, School of General Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T.

• Reptiles, Bellairs, A. d'A. (1957)
• Tuatara, Vol. 2 (1949), “The Tuatara”, Dawbin, W. H.
• Endeavour, Vol. XXI (1962), “The Tuatara in its natural habitat”, Dawbin, W. H.
• Bulletin of the Auckland Zoological Society, No. 2 (1935). “The Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus),” Falla, R. A.
• Kukenthal and Krumbrac Handbuch der Zoologie, 7 (1931), “Rhynchocephalia”, Von Wettstein, O. (Review of Tuatara technical literature).

(Chione stutchburyi).

Well known as the New Zealand “cockle”, it is not a true cockle; venus shell, or the Maori name, tuangi, is preferable. The tuangi grows up to 2 in. in width and is white with a violet-coloured patch on the inside of each valve. It lives in large colonies, just beneath the surface, in muddy localities between tides, and occasionally to a depth of 2 fm. It is esteemed for food.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

Tuakau is situated on flat land in the Lower Waikato Valley, and 2 miles from the bridge over the Waikato River that gives access to Port Waikato and other Lower Waikato settlements. The North Island Main Trunk railway runs through the town. The main Auckland-Hamilton highway passes 5 miles east of the town. Tuakau is 38 miles south of Auckland by road and 35 miles by rail. By road Pukekohe is 5 miles north-west, and Hamilton 52 miles south-east.

Tuakau is a servicing and distributing centre for a district well suited for several kinds of intensive farming. The rural activities include sheep and dairy farming, market gardening, fruitgrowing, and poultry farming. Within half a mile of the borough is an engineering works and factories producing builders, supplies and concrete products. Industries in the town include butter manufacturing, the preparation of bonedust, fertiliser, and by-products of boiling-down works, poultry dressing and egg grading, general engineering, joinery, and the making of lingerie.

Tuakau was founded in 1840. It was originally a flax milling centre with a convenient landing place on the nearby Waikato River. During the Waikato War (1863-64), a small fort armed with a heavy gun was built on a bluff overlooking the landing, this earthwork being called Alexandra Redoubt. Colour-Sergeant E. McKenna, who was stationed at Alexandra Redoubt, won the Victoria Cross during an engagement with the Maoris who had sacked Camerontown, an army depot about 5 miles down stream. A monument on the site of Alexandra Redoubt, which is now an historic reserve, commemorates those who served in the Maori Wars. Tuakau was created a town district in 1914 and became a borough in 1955.

The meaning of the name is obscure.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 1,069; 1956 census, 1,326; 1961 census, 1,524.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

(Charonia capax).

This shellfish has a large trumpet shell growing to 8 in. or more in height. It is found adjacent to rocks within harbour entrances in clean-water situations. This and other species of trumpets found in our waters have had their origin in East Australian waters, from pelagic larvae that have been transported across the Tasman by the East Australian warm-water current. These shells were much prized by the Maoris who fashioned them into war trumpets.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

(Salmo gairdnerii).

Essentially similar to brown trout, rainbows differ chiefly in having a reddish band along the side of the body, although this may be lacking in immature fish. The dark spots on the back are smaller and more numerous than in the brown trout, but red spots are absent. In New Zealand, rainbow trout occur principally in lakes, migrating into the adjacent rivers to spawn, but they are also present in river systems in the Bay of Plenty and Waimarino areas. The original stocks of rainbow were “steelhead”, i.e., sea-run rainbow, but no runs of “steelhead” occur in New Zealand waters. The eggs are laid in a depression (redd) dug into the gravel, then covered over again. They hatch a few weeks later and the larvae (fry) make their way up through the gravel to the free water, living for a brief time on the contents of their yolk sacs. The young fish (fingerlings) stay in the river till a few inches in length, then descend to the feeding ground, where most of their growth occurs. Well conditioned mature rainbows from lakes average about 4 lb, but much larger fish are not uncommon.

by Lawrence James Paul, B.SC., Fisheries Division, Marine Department, Wellington.

(Salmo trutta).

Brown trout vary greatly in size, shape, and colouring. River-dwelling fish are brownish-grey, with red and brown spots on the back and sides, and average 1 –2 lb in weight. They are usually non-migratory, being more or less stationary, spawning in suitable gravels near their feeding grounds. Large river-dwelling fish, up to 8 lb, may be taken from the headwaters of rivers. Some brown trout are migratory, living in estuaries or the sea and moving upstream in the autumn or winter to spawn. Fresh-run fish from saline water are silvery in appearance, but once in freshwater soon darken, resembling river-dwelling fish in colour. Adult brown trout of this migratory type are larger than river-dwelling fish, commonly reaching 6 lb or more. The young fish resemble the river variety in colour, until at the end of their first year when they turn silvery and migrate down stream in small shoals.

The small river trout feed on the larvae of aquatic insects, while the larger estuary and lake-dwelling fish live on small fish (bullies and smelts). The spawning habits of brown trout are similar to those of rainbow trout.

Lake-dwelling brown trout are also migratory, moving into tributaries to spawn. The number of fish in a lake is often controlled by limited spawning facilities in the adjacent streams, but with the abundant food available in the lake, the adults are able to grow to a considerable size. Lake browns average 6–8 lb and tend to become yellowish in colour.

by Lawrence James Paul, B.SC., Fisheries Division, Marine Department, Wellington.

(1820-97).

Canterbury runholder.

C. G. Tripp was the third son of the Rev. Charles Tripp, D.D., Rector of Kentisbeare and, later, of Silverton Rectory, Devonshire; his mother was Frances, daughter of Sir William Owen, Bart. He was born at Kentisbeare, Devonshire, on 1 July 1820 and was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, London. He studied law in London and was called to the Bar in 1853. He came to New Zealand two years later and went as a cadet to Brittan and Burke's Halswell Station.

Along with J. B. A. Acland, also from the West Country, Tripp began to look for a station. They had £2,000 each but this was clearly not enough to buy a station already formed and stocked. All Canterbury including the foothills was already taken up and Tripp had the idea of applying for high country behind the foothills. They explored the upper reaches of the Rangitata, the Orari, and the Ashburton, and were believed to be the first white men to visit that country. They applied for, and were allotted, certain areas which were afterwards known as Mount Somers, Mount Possession, Mount Peel, and Orari Gorge, besides part of Mesopotamia and Hakatere. By 1857 they had 1,100 sheep on Mount Peel.

In 1861, when Acland was away and the stations were short of money, Tripp sold Mount Possession to Robert Tooth for £4,000. In 1862 Acland and Tripp dissolved partnership, Tripp taking Orari Gorge. He sold Mount Somers to his brother-in-law, Percy Cox. He married on 23 September 1858, Ellen Shephard, third daughter of Bishop Harper. They honeymooned at Akaroa and rode back through South Canterbury, fording the rivers and staying at stations on their way. There was only a cottage at Orari Gorge and, although there was a piano in it, amenities were few. They visited England in 1862, and Tripp found his father, who was nearly 80, almost blind and unable to recognise him. He refused to believe his son's stories of success. Thereupon Tripp wrote to his agent in New Zealand, instructing him to sell Orari Gorge and transmit the money to England. Tripp returned to Canterbury in time to buy back his station before the stock had been delivered. When the family moved into Orari Gorge in 1866, they experienced the great snow of 1867 and the great flood of 1868.

Charles Tripp was an ideal settler for a young colony. He was a sincere, generous-hearted man, tremendously energetic and always in a hurry. He was simple, yet shrewd – two qualities seldom joined together. He was impetuous and quick tempered, but the most kind-hearted of men. Consequently he could always get men to work for him. Although he had no eye for stock, he was a shrewd judge of country. As befitting the son-in-law of a bishop, he was a staunch member of the Church of England. His four sons were all good and able men. He died on 6 July 1897, aged 77.

by George Ranald Macdonald, Retired Farmer, Kaiapoi R.D.

• Early Canterbury Runs, Acland, L. G. D. (1946)
• My Early Days, Tripp, Ellen Shephard. (n.d.).

(Spisula aeqilateralis). This shellfish grows to about 2 in. in diameter. Four of these shells placed tops to the centre make a perfect circle. It is washed ashore in great abundance on our ocean beaches, particularly from Waikanae to Wanganui.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

Scarcely less sensational than the Parker-Hulme murder, but vastly different in character, was the killing in December 1953 at the Dunedin Public Hospital of John William Saunders, a 27-year-old house surgeon, by Senga Florence Whittingham, a female house surgeon, also 27 years of age. After a six-day trial, on a charge of murder, Whittingham was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced by Mr Justice McGregor to three years' imprisonment. A consequential penalty was the removal of her name from the roll of medical practitioners. In contrast to the cool and tranquil calculation of the Parker-Hulme crime, with its complete absence of passion or compunction, the tragic act of Whittingham was characterised by unhappy circumstances of intimate relationships. According to her story, the young doctor had become engaged to Saunders in May of 1953. She was then carrying his child, but when some months later it was found that she would not be delivered of the child, the engagement came to a sudden end. Whittingham was greatly distressed and displayed it openly. On an evening in December after a professional party at which Saunders had been accompanied by a student nurse, Whittingham, armed with a loaded ·303 rifle, followed him to a lavatory in the house surgeons' quarters at the hospital, where he was later found fatally shot. The defence was one of accident with no intent to kill. Her idea, the prisoner said, was merely to frighten Saunders.

After a trial notable for the volume and variety of the evidence adduced, Mr Justice McGregor, summing up before the jury retired, suggested that, notwithstanding that the prisoner had deliberately possessed herself of a loaded firearm, the facts did not disclose any real intent to kill or do actual bodily harm. He emphasised, however, that Whittingham's actions displayed a high degree of recklessness. In the face of such a summing up, and considering all the circumstances of the tragedy, it is probable that the public were not surprised (or, perhaps, even greatly troubled) when the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter with a recommendation that the utmost leniency be shown, because they believed that the rifle was accidentally discharged. Whittingham, on her release before the expiry of her sentence, left the country.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

There have been few crimes in New Zealand more patently the product of a cold intensity of selfishness than the murder on the Cashmere Hills, Christchurch, in June 1954 of Mrs Honora Mary Parker (otherwise known as Mrs Rieper) by her 16-year-old daughter, Pauline Yvonne Parker, and her schoolfriend, Juliet Marion Hulme, two months younger. The incredible ingredients of the crime were graphically disclosed in the six-day trial of the two girls for murder. Perhaps the most disturbing feature of the murder was the attempt by the two girls to represent their actions as a crusading challenge to the conventional in human behaviour and relationships. Authority and the community were not converted – merely inexpressibly shocked.

Mrs Parker was brutally done to death with a half brick encased in an old stocking which one of the girls had carried around in her shoulder bag for half a day. Moreover, both of the prisoners used the weapon in succession. An “intense devotion” had developed between the pair, and when Hulme's father made preparations to leave for South Africa, Parker refused to accept the inevitable. The two girls resolved to leave the country and later go to South Africa where they would live together. Because they were well aware that Parker's mother would veto such a mad plan, they agreed she must be killed. On what purported to be a farewell outing before the departure of the Hulmes, the two girls battered Mrs Parker to death. The strange relationship existing between them was brought to light by means of grotesque evidence from diaries, attempts at novel writing, and their own statements. Inevitably insanity was pleaded, but strong medical evidence by the defence was rebutted by irresistible testimony by Crown experts, one of the features of the trial being the broadsides of cross-examination of doctors and psychiatrists by both sides. The question was, “Are they mad or bad?” The defence declared they were insane. The Crown replied that they “were not incurably insane, but incurably bad”. The jury did not take long to decide that the prisoners were sane, and unequivocally rejected the invoking by the defence of the M'Naghten Rules (1843) which evolved from a case of delusional insanity, and are still frequently pleaded.

On 25 August 1954 the two girls were sentenced by Mr Justice F. B. Adams to be detained indefinitely. It is probable that a large body of public opinion felt that undue mercy had been shown, but under section 5 of the Capital Punishment Act of 1950, which reintroduced the death penalty, persons under the age of 18 years were excluded from a capital sentence. Parker and Hulme therefore received an indeterminate sentence, and by order of the Executive Council were detained in separate penal institutions. After serving several years they were released and have left the country.