LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



Ill 



abstinence, it did not apparently fall away. But 

 it was distressing to watch its strict fast day after 

 day, and yet day after day I hoped this long fast 

 would be broken, and did not like to abandon it. 

 I was the more anxious to get it to feed, because 

 it was full of eggs in the progress of development, 

 which must have made great demands on its con- 

 stitution, and I had frequently seen chameleons 

 take insects freely ; of which more anon. One 

 facetious friend would never call it anything but 

 Martha Taylor, in memory, I suppose, of the fast- 

 ing woman of Derbyshire, who, in consequence 

 of a blow on the back, fell into such a prostration 

 of appetite, that she took hardly any sustenance but 

 some drops with a feather, from Christmas 1667, 

 for thirteen months, sleeping but little all the time. 

 After laying a large number of apparently perfect 

 eggs, my chameleon died ; and Mrs. M. announced 

 the event to me as "a happy release." 



Le Bruyn, in his Voyage to the Levant, declares 

 that the chameleons which he kept in his apart- 

 ment at Smyrna lived on air, adding, however, 

 that they died one after another in a short time. 

 Sonnini, who saw several of them at the entrance 

 of the catacombs at Alexandria, wishing to satisfy 

 himself to what point they could subsist without 

 food, employed every precaution to prevent their 

 having any, leaving them, however, exposed to 

 the open air. They Jived under these conditions 

 for twenty days, but soon began to dwindle. 

 When they were first caught they were plump, 

 but they soon became very thin. They gradually 

 lost their agility and their colors with their good 

 condition ; their skins became livid and wrinkled, 

 and adhered close to the bone ; so that, to use his 

 own expression, they had the appearance of being 

 dried before they ceased to exist. The apparent 

 good condition of my chameleon may have been 

 due to its good plight when I received it ; most 

 oviparous animals at the time when the eggs are 

 in the early process of formation, being weM fed 

 and rilled, as we see in the case of fish. As the 

 eggs are developed the system is drained, till, at 

 last, when they are fully formed, the fish, is nearly 

 worthless as food, all its goodness having gone 

 into the roe. In the case of insects the silk 

 moth,* for example no sustenance is taken after 

 the worm has woven the shroud, from whose 

 cerements it is to burst forth made perfect. The 

 imago has every sign of a well-filled system, till, 

 in obedience to the great law of nature, the eggs 

 are laid, and the parents, having finished the work 

 which they were appointed to perform, die with- 

 out having any support save that which they derive 

 from the sun and air. The power of abstinence, 

 even in those warm-blooded animals whose food is 

 not always ready for them, the carnivora, for 

 instance, is very great ; and in the reptiles gener- 

 ally most remarkable. The belief that the chame- 

 leon fed on air only was general amongst the 

 ancients. The mode in which it gulps the air 

 for respiration favored this notion. 



* Pkalcena mori. 



Chameleon hiat, ut tenui depascitur aura, 

 Reciprocumque soli per sata carpit iter. 



Indicat ac varies semper mutatque colores, 

 Mutat hians faciem, mutat hians chlamydem. 



Candidaque induitur nunquam, nee rubra supellex, 

 Semper hiat zephyros, semper hiat stimulos. 



And long before these lines were written the 

 amorous Roman* had celebrated the aerial diet 

 and mutability of the creature. 



Id quoque quod ventis animal nutritur et aura 

 Protinus assimilat tetigit quoscunque colores. 



Red and white were supposed to be the colors 

 which it could never assume, as indicated in the 

 first lines above printed. The former color no 

 one has recorded as visible upon the chameleon's 

 skin throughout ; but the latter has been mentioned 

 both in prose and poetry. A vir nobilissimus fidt 

 dignus related to Aldrovand, that he wrapped up 

 one which had been presented to him in a whit* 

 handkerchief, and when he arrived at home pro- 

 ceeded to open it, in order to examine the animal, 

 but could see nothing but the handkerchief. At 

 last he detected the chameleon, which had se 

 completely acquired the whiteness of the wrapper 

 as to be invisible. 



The gentlemen who nearly lost their temper im 

 disputing about the color of one of these reptilee 

 were all put in the wrong by him who 



Produc'd the beast, and lo! 'twas white. 



My experience supports the conclusions of 

 Sonnini and Milne Edwards as to the mutability 

 of color. When the chameleon kept by me first 

 came into my possession, and was comparatively 

 vigorous, substances of various colors were placed 

 near it without its ever altering its hue according- 

 ly, as far as I could perceive. It would roll its 

 eye and bring it to bear on the object, and some- 

 times the tints of the skin would vary, but not iu 

 unison with the adjacent color. When it war 

 clinging to the dark bronze-work of the fender, 

 enjoying the heat of the fire, I sometimes thought 

 that its hue became more sombre ; but this effect 

 was by no means constant. Gray, Isabella color, 

 and pale yellow, with the spots or granules vary- 

 ing into green, grayish or blackish, were the 

 prevailing changes ; but I never saw it white. I 

 have seen it of a whitey-brown color ; and such 

 was its prevailing hue in its latter days, and at 

 its death. 



The French academicians seem to have come 

 to the conclusion that the sun was a principal 

 agent in such changes. They describe the color 

 of the eminences of their chameleon, when it was 

 at rest in the shade and had remained a long time 

 undisturbed, as of 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 changed when the 

 animal was in the sun ; and all the parts of its 

 body which were illuminated altered from their 

 bluish color to a brownish gray inclining to 

 tawny. The rest of the skin, which was not 

 illuminated by the sun, changed from gray into 

 several lively shining colors, forming spots about 



* Mctam. lib. xv. 



