LIZARDS, 149 
Reptiles should be fed upon earth-worms, slugs, and raw meat. 
They should be handled carefully, for though they have very 
small mouths they are able to bite a tiny piece of flesh out of the 
hand or elsewhere. 
The Common Chameleon (Chameleon vulgaris), Fig. 51, is so 
extraordinary a Lizard in many ways that it has been placed 
in the above sub-order. It is indeed a wonderful creature, 
but not nearly so wonderful as it is sometimes reported to be. 
There are perhaps more delusions in regard to the Chameleon 
than any other Reptile, except the snake. Old writers asserted 
that it lived upon air, and that it could not only change 
its shape, but also assume any colour it wished. There is, 
however, a foundation of truth for all these false statements. 
The Chameleon has considerable powers of fasting, and it can, by 
means of its very capacious lungs, greatly inflate its body with 
air ; hence the assumption that it fed only upon air. And when 
the animal has exhaled the air which it contained, the lately- 
swollen body becomes very much compressed ; there is, therefore, 
in this sense not a little change in the creature’s shape. 
Then, again, the Chameleon has great capability of changing 
colour, perhaps greater than any other Reptile, not even excepting 
the Calotes of India, of which mention has already been made. 
But it does not, as a rule, assume the colour of the object upon 
which it is resting ; and yet one reads in a modern Natural History 
for Children that its colour is so exactly like that of the sur- 
rounding leaves or flowers that the animal cannot easily be 
detected, and should it change its post and quit a clump of bright 
green leaves in favour of a cluster of brilliant scarlet or blue 
blossoms its colour changes to the same tint. That the Chameleon 
becomes blue in colour when among blue flowers and brilliant 
scarlet in colour when surrounded by brilliant scarlet flowers, 1s 
certainly not the case. 
The colouring of the Chameleon is chiefly controlled by its 
passions, such as fear, anger, and pleasure. People who have no 
individuality, so to speak, of their own, and who are ready to 
follow the lead and adopt the opinions of others, have often been 
likened to the Chameleon ; but not justly, for this Reptile has a 
certain amount of character. It very seldom assumes the exact 
