xiv. DWARF LIONS. 209 



He turned greener than ever in his anger and jealousy. 

 And they fought. You never saw such grotesquely 

 furious little lions. Their slow and methodical mode of 

 progression was altogether forgotten. There was no 

 method in the madness of their anger. They chased each 

 other up and down the bough, until one, either in- 

 tentionally or by accident, dropped to the ground, and 

 sidled off awkwardly and excitedly towards the bushes. 



It was some little time before the victor quieted down 

 into a state of normal and sedate tranquillity. But in half 

 an hour or so he took up a convenient position and blew 

 himself out to twice his natural size with an air of content 

 and satisfaction. You could see that this dwarf-lion was 

 literally puffed up with pride. This puffing out of the 

 body is a curious habit of the chameleon. It gave rise to 

 the old notion that they lived on air. The lungs are of 

 large size. The anterior portion is much more compact 

 and spongy than the posterior ; and from the posterior or 

 hinder portion there grow out numerous hollow bladders 

 which can be inflated with air, and which extend in among 

 the viscera wherever there is room. This reminds one 

 somewhat of a bird's lung, communicating with which 

 there are generally nine air-spaces occupying a good deal 

 of space in the body. In your lungs and mine the whole 

 structure is spongy ; and the whole lung can be somewhat 

 distended and slightly collapsed during the processes 

 of inspiration and expiration. In the bird it is different. 

 The lungs are hardly at all distensible ; and the air does 

 not merely go into and out of them, but backwards and 

 forwards through them, into and out of the air-spaces. 

 The air-bladders of the chameleon seem to foreshadow the 

 air-spaces of birds, and they give the creature its strange 

 power of blowing itself out until the outer skin has quite a 

 transparent appearance. Then sometimes he will blow off 



