282 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



in, or between, " two minds." My wish was that 

 these same two minds could have two bodies with sets 

 of senses complete, so that each might be able to follow 

 its own line. I envied the chameleon just then — a 

 strange creature which is said to change its colour ac- 

 cording to its surroundings. That, however, is merely 

 a physical condition, one which it shares with certain 

 other creatures without any mind at all, or in which 

 the mind is dormant, as, for example, in some chrysalids. 

 It is a minor mystery ; the big mystery of the chame- 

 leon, the pretty problem for the students of animal 

 psychology, is the divisibility of its mind, the faculty of 

 being two persons in one body, each thinking and 

 acting independently of the other. Observe him in 

 a domestic state, sitting on a branch in a room, in 

 appearance a deformed lizard, or the skeleton of one, 

 encased in a discoloured, granulated skin, long dried 

 to a parchment. The most remarkable feature is the 

 head, which reminds one of a grotesque mediaeval 

 carving in or on some old church, of a toad-like or 

 fish-like human creature, with a countenance expressive 

 of some ancient, forgotten kind of wisdom. He is 

 absolutely motionless, dead or asleep one might 

 imagine ; but on a closer scrutiny you discover that 

 he is not only awake and alive, but that he has two 

 lives in him — in other words, that the two hemispheres 

 of his brain are working separately, each occupied with 

 its own problem. It may be seen in his eyes — minute 

 round lenses mounted on swivels, or small fleshy or 

 rubber processes, capable of being elevated or de- 



