526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which this duality is forcibly thrust on the attention. As a conscious- 

 ly-held hypothesis is habitually based on some obtrusive instance of a 

 relation, which other instances are suspected to be like, so the par- 

 ticular primitive notion which is to serve as an unconscious hypothe- 

 sis, setting up organization in this aggregate of primitive notions, must 

 be one conspicuously exemplifying their common trait. 



First identifying this typical notion, we shall afterward have to 

 enter on a survey of the general conceptions which result. It will be 

 needful to pursue various lines of inquiry and exposition not mani- 

 festly relevant to our subject ; and it will also be needful to consider 

 the meaning of much evidence furnished by men who have advanced 

 beyond the savage state. But this discursive treatment is unavoid- 

 able. Until we can figure to ourselves with approximate truth the 

 primitive system of thought, we cannot fully understand primitive 

 conduct ; and, rightly to conceive the primitive system of thought, we 

 must compare the systems found in many societies, helping ourselves, 

 by observing its developed forms, to verify our conclusions respect- 

 ing its undeveloped form. 



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CHAMELEONS THEIR HABITS AND COLOR-CHANGES. 



Br J. FITZGEKALD, A. M. 



IN consequence of the incredible stories anciently told of the cha- 

 meleon, one is hardly disposed to regard that animal as a reality ; 

 it appears to find its proper place in mythology rather than in natural 

 history among fabled dragons, centaurs, and griffins, rather than 

 among the actualities of the animal kingdom. The chameleon, how- 

 ever, has a real existence ; and, after fiction and fable are brushed 

 aside, a very curious creature indeed remains. It belongs to the Sau- 

 rian order (lizards). The genus Chamceleo embraces about twenty 

 species, none of them American. With one exception, the common 

 chameleon, which is naturalized in Southern Spain and in Sicily, these 

 animals are found only in the warmer parts of Africa and Asia. The 

 chameleon is from ten to fifteen inches in length, whereof one-half is 

 represented by the prehensile tail. The body is roughly pyramidal 

 in shape ; the skin is covered with papillous elevations instead of 

 scales, and these, in some of the species, assume the shape of spiny 

 processes along the ridge of the back and the median line of the 

 chest and belly. The toes, five in number, are divided into two op- 

 posable sets of two and three, the toes of each set being webbed down 

 to the claws, which are long and sharp. The head is angular, rising 

 into a pyramidal occiput. The eyeball is very large, protruding, 

 covered with a single lid, which has a minute aperture in the centre 



