NATURAL 
feathers of his tail the colour of fire, 
as that of the South-seas. 
In many cases, the deeper that 
the ground is, the more brilliant 
are the colours in which the ani- 
mal, destined to live upon it, is 
arrayed. We have not, perhaps, 
in Europe, any insect with richer 
and gayer clothing than the ster- 
coraccous scarab, and the fly, which 
bears the same epithet. This last 
is brighter than burnished gold and 
steel; the other, of a hemispheri- 
cal form, is of a fine blue, inciin- 
ing to purple ; and in order to ren- 
der the contrast complete, he ex- 
hales a strong and ayreeable odour 
of musk, 
Nature has bestowed at once, in 
the colours of innoxious animals, 
contrasts with the ground on which 
they live, and consonances with 
that which is adjacent, and has su- 
‘peradded the instinét of employing 
these alternately, according as good 
or bad fortune prompts. These 
wonderful accommodations may be 
_remarked in most of our small 
birds, whose flight is feeble, and 
of short duration. The grey lark 
finds her subsistence among . the 
grass of the plains ? Does any thing 
terrify her, she glides away, and 
takes her station between two little 
clods of earth, where she becomes 
invisible. On this post she re- 
mains in such perfect tranquillity, 
as hardly to quit it, when the foot 
of the fowler is ready to erush her. 
The same thing is true of the par- 
tridge, I have no doubt that these 
defenceless birds have a sense of 
those contrasts and corresponden- 
cies of colour; for I have remark. 
ed it even in insects. In the month 
HISTORY. [395 
of March last, Iobserved, by the 
brink of the rivulet which washes 
the Gobelins *, a butterfly of the 
colour of brick, reposing with ex. 
panded wings on a tuft of grass. 
On my approaching him, he flew 
off, He alighted, at some paces dis. 
tance, on the ground, whch, at 
that place, was of the same colour 
with himself. I approached him 
a second time; he took a secoad 
flight, and perched again on a 
similar stripe of earth. Ina word, 
I found it was not in my power 
to oblige him to alight on the 
grass, though I made frequent at- 
tempts to that effect, and though ' 
the spaces of earth-which separated 
the turfy soil were narrow, and few 
in number. 
This wonderful instinét is like. 
wise conspicuously evident in the 
cameleon. This species of lizard, 
whose motion is extremely siow, 
‘s indemnified for this, by the in- 
comprehensible faculty of assum. 
ing, at pleasure, the colour of the 
ground over which he moves. 
With this advantage, he is ena- 
bled to elude the eye of his pur- 
suer, whose speed would soon have 
overtaken him. ‘This faculty is in 
his will, for hisskin is by no means 
a mirror. It reflects only the 
colour of objects, and not their 
form. What is farther singularly 
remarkable in this, and perfectly 
ascertained by naturalists, though 
they assign no reason for it, he can 
assume all colours, as brown, grey, 
yellow, and especia!ly green, which 
is his favourite colour, but never 
red. The cameleon has been plac. 
ed, for weeks together, amidst 
scarlet stuffs, without acquiring the 
* Asmall village in the suburbs of Paris, noted for its manufactures in fine tae 
pestry and superb mirrors, 
slightest 
