304 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. Book VIII. 



pale colour. It has a little flesh about the head, the jaws, 

 and the root of the tail, hut none whatever on the rest of the 

 body. It has no blood whatever, except in the heart and 

 about the eyes, and its entrails are without a spleen. 64 It 

 conceals itself during the winter months, just like the lizard. 



CHAP. 52. OTHER ANIMALS WHICH CHANGE COLOUR; THE 



TARANDUS, THE LYCAON, AND THE THOS. 



The tarandrus, 65 too, of the Scythians, changes its colour, 

 but this is the case with none of the animals which are covered 

 with hair, except the lycaon 66 of India, which is said to have 

 a mane on the neck. But with respect to the thos, 67 (which is 

 a species of wolf, differing from the common kind in having a 

 larger body and very short legs, leaping with great activity, 

 living by the chase, and never attacking man) ; it changes its 



popular poem of the Chameleon. The animal, indeed, assumes various 

 shades or tints, but the changes depend upon internal or constitutional 

 causes, not any external object. JElian, Anim. Nat. B. ii. c. 14, refers to 

 the change of colour, but does not allude to its colour having any con- 

 nection with that of the object with which it comes in contact. B. 



64 The quantity of muscular fibre and blood in the chameleon is no 

 doubt small in proportion to the bulk of the animal, although not much 

 less than in other animals of the same natural order ; its spleen is very 

 minute, as Cuvier says, not larger than the seed of a lentil. B. 



65 Cuvier remarks, that this account is from the anonymous treatise 

 De Mirab. Auscult. p. 1152, and from Theophrastus ; and that it was pro- 

 bably derived, in the first instance, from the imperfect account which the 

 ancients possessed of the reindeer, the hair of which animal becomes 

 nearly white in the winter, and in the summer of a brown or grey colour. 

 Bekmann, however, who has written a commentary on the above-mentioned 

 treatise, supposes that the tarandrus is the elk. Cuvier conceives, that the 

 animal described by Caesar, Bell. Gall. B. vi. c. 26, as inhabiting the 

 Hercynian Forest, which he designates as " bos cervi figura," is the rein- 

 deer ; and suggests that " tarandrus " may have originated in the German, 

 dew rennthier. Ajasson, vol, vi. pp. 453, 454 ; Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 456, 457. 

 ^Elian, Anim. Nat. B. ii. c. 16, speaks of the change of colour in the ta- 

 randrus in a way which does not correspond with any animal known to 

 exist. B. Pliny's stories of the tarandrus, thos, and chameleon are ridi- 

 culed by Rabelais, B. iv> c. 3. 



66 Cuvier supposes that the lycaon of Pliny is the Indian tiger, which 

 has a mane ; but what is said of its change of colour is incorrect. B. 



67 Naturalists have differed respecting the identity of the animal here 

 described, but Cuvier conceives, that Bochart has proved it to be the canis 

 aureus chakal (jackal) of Linnaeus. The description given by Aristotle, 

 Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 17, and B. ix. c. 44, agrees with this supposition ; 

 it is also described by Oppian, Halieut. B. ii. c. 615. B. 



