CHAMELEONa 



CHAMKLE 



hifih peroeptiim of that of taste may be doubted. Smell. Mont pro 

 bably not ccute ; the external orifice* of the nostrils are more lateral, 

 and coUMiiuently wider apart than in most of the other Saurian*. 

 Hearing. There a no visible external ear, but an internal cavity not 

 much developed in the bone* of the side* of the skull, communicating 

 with the throat, and covered externally by the common integuments. 



browniith-gray, inclining to minima. The rest of the skin which was 

 not illuminated by the sun changed its gray into several brink and 

 hining colours, forming spots about half a finger's breadth, reaching 

 from the crest of the spine Ui the niid<ll f the back ; others appeared 

 on the ribs, fore legs, and tail All these spots were of an Isabella 

 colour, through the mixture of a palu yellow with which the granules 



Skeleton of Chameleon (Chnmceleo cvlgaru.) 



Sight The eyes of the Chameleon are remarkable objects ; large, 

 projecting, and almost entirely covered with the shagreen-like skin, 

 with the exception of a small aperture opposite to the pupil : their 

 motions are completely independent of each other. It adda to the 

 strange and grotesque appearance of this creature, to nee it roll one 

 of its eye-globes backwards, while the other is directed forwards, as 

 if making two distinct surveys at one time. Its sight must be acute, 

 from the unerring certainty with which it marks and strikes its prey. 



Reproduction. By means of eggs, which are numerous at each 

 deposit, oval, and enveloped in a white, tough, parchment-like skin. 



Habits, &c. The Chameleons spend their lives in trees, clinging 

 to the branches by means of their feet and tail. There they lie in 

 wait for the insects which may come within their reach ; and it is 

 highly probable that, in such situations, their faculty of changing 

 their colour becomes highly important in aiding them to conceal 

 themselves. They move about with great regularity and a kind of 

 affected gravity. The powers of abstinence possessed by this singular 

 race are very great, and hence most probably arose the old fable of 

 their living on air, which was for a long time considered-to be " the 

 chameleon's dish." We kept one for upwards of six weeks, and during 

 all that time it never, as far as we could observe, took any sustenance, 

 though meal-worms and other insects were procured for it. Notwith- 

 standing this fast, it did not appear to fall away much. It would fix 

 itself by the feet and tail to the bars of the fender, and there remain 

 motionless, apparently enjoying the warmth of the fire for hours 

 together. Its motions were excessively slow. It was a female, and 

 died after laying a great number of eggs. Hasselquist describes one 

 that he kept for near a month, as climbing up and down the bam of 

 its cage in a very lively manner. Numbers have been-exhil .it. 

 time to time in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, but they do 

 not live long. The males are distinguished by the thickness of 

 their tails. 



That the Chameleon was known to the ancients there is no doubt. 

 It was the X<vuuA/i/ of the Greeks and the Chamaleo of the Latins. 

 Aristotle's history of the animal proves the acute observation of that 

 great zoologist, for he notices the peculiarities of the animal, the 

 absence of a sternum, the disposition of the ribs, the mechanism of 

 the tail, the motion of the eyes, the toes bound up in opposeable 

 bundles, Ac., though he is not entirely correct in some points. 

 (' Hist Anim.,' book 2, ch. xi.) Pliny (' Hist. Nat./ lib. viii., c. 33) 

 mentions it, but his account is for the most i>art a compilation from 

 Arutotle. 



The power possessed by these creatures of changing colour has 

 been a subject of wonder and exaggeration from on early period. 

 Wood, in his ' Zoography,' gives the following translation of the 

 account given by the French academicians of this phenomenon : "The 

 colour of all the eminences of our chameleon, when it was at rest, in 

 the shade, and had continued a long time undisturbed, was a bluish- 

 gray, except under the feet, where it was white inclining to yellow ; 

 and the intervals of the granules of the skin were of a pale and 

 yellowish-red. This gray, which coloured all the ports exposed to 

 the light, changed when in the sun ; and all the places of iU body 

 which were illuminated, instead of their bluish colour, became of a 



were tinged, and of a bright red, which is the colour of the bottom of 

 the skin which is visible between the granules ; the rest of the skin 

 not enlightened by the sun, and which was of a paler gray than ordi- 

 nary, resembled a cloth made of mixed wool ; some of the granules being 

 greenish, others of a niinime gray, and others of the usual bluish-gray, 

 the ground remaining as before. When the sun did not shine, the 

 first gray appeared again by little and little, and spread itself all over 

 the body, except under the feet, which continued of the same colour, 

 but a little browner ; and when, being in this state, some of the com- 

 pany handled it, there immediately appeared on its shoulders and fore 

 legs several very blackish spots, about the size of a finger nail, and 

 which did not take place when it was handled by those who usually 

 took care of it Sometimes it was marked with brown spots, whie.h 

 inclined towards green. We afterwards wrapped it up in a linen 

 cloth, where having been two or three minutes we took it out whitish ; 

 but not so white as that of which Aldrovandus speaks, which was not 

 to be distinguished from the linen on which it was laid. Oure, which 

 had only changed its ordinary gray into a pale one, after having kept 

 this colour some time, lost it insensibly. This experiment made us 

 question the truth of the chameleon's taking all colours but white, as 

 Theophrastua and Plutarch report, for ours seemed to have such a 

 disposition to retain this colour, that it grew pale every night, and 

 when dead it had more white than any other colour ; nor did we find 

 that it changed colour all over the body, as Aristotle reports ; for 

 when it takes other colours than gray, and disguises itself to appear 

 in masquerade, as ^-Kliau pleasantly says, it covers only certain parts 

 of the body with them. Lastly, to conclude the experiments relut in- 

 to the colours which the chameleon con take, it was laid on substances 

 of various colours, and wrapped up tluTrin ; hut it took not them as 

 it had done the white, and it took that only the first time the experi- 

 ment was made, though it was repeated several times on ditl'i -mit, 

 days. In making these experiments we observed that there were a 

 great many places of it* .-kin which grew brown, but very little at a 

 time : to be certain of which we marked with small specks of ink 

 those granules which to us appeared whitest in its pale state, ami we 

 always found that when it grew brownest and its skin spotted, those 

 grains which we had marked wore always less brown than the rest" 



Numerous theories, some of them sufficiently absurd, have been 

 proposed to account for this phenomenon. It was reserved for 

 Milne-Edwards to give a complete an '<>ry explanation. 



In a paper published in the AmmU M Naturelles' for 



January, 1834, and translated in the 17th vol. of the 'Edinburgh 

 New Philosophical Journal,' he has given the result of his investi- 

 gations. The following are his conclusions : 



1. That the change in the colour of Chameleons does not dojK-nd 

 essentially either on the more or less considerable swelling of their 

 bodies, or the changes which might hence result to the condition of 

 tlnir blood or circulation; nor docs it depend mi the greater or less 

 distance which may exist between the several cutaneous tubercles ; 

 Although it is not to be denied that these circumstances prol.nl. ly 

 excrciHe some influen. e ii]i..n the phenomenon. 



2. That there exists in the xkin of the.se animals two layer* of 

 membranous pigment placed the one above the other, but diposed in 



