NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 339 



plainly perceive that tlie victim waxed lean and suffered 

 from hunger; but the Swede was obdurate, though he 

 saw that it could no longer hold fast by the bars of its 

 cage, from which it fell through weakness, when a turtle, 

 a thirse probably, which was kept in the same room, bit 

 it, and hastened its death. 



Before I came to the resolution induced by the death 

 of poor Binny, my tame beaver, a friend gave me a living 

 chameleon, which remained with me nearly two months. 

 It was winter, and every precaution was adopted to make 

 the poor reptile as comfortable as possible. It lived in a 

 wicker cage, to the bars of which it clung with feet and 

 tail ; but, after it had been with me a few days, it would 

 leave the cage and establish itself on the ornamental 

 work of the iron fender before the fire. Soon it began 

 to recognise me, surveying me with a knowing roll of its 

 singular optics, opened in the centre of the shagreen-like 

 globes of the eyes. It then would leave the bars of the 

 cage for my hand, the warmth of which seemed to com- 

 fort it, and would remain in it till I transferred it to the 

 warm fender, which was its favourite post. Clinging with 

 its feet and tail, with one eye directed backwards towards 

 me, and with the other forwards, scanning the fire as if it 

 were looking for the faces of other chameleons in it, the 

 creature would remain motionless for hours, enjoying the 

 genial temperature. During the whole time it was with 

 me it never took any nourishment, though meal-worms 

 and other insects were procured for it. When they were 

 presented it would roll its eye and bring it to bear upon 

 them; but neither Mrs. M., the good old housekeeper, 

 who was so fond of Binny, nor myself, ever saw it take 

 one, nor was one ever missed from among those presented 

 to it. The housekeeper was at her wits' end what to do 

 for it, till at last she became pacified, fully believing that 

 it fed upon air ; for, notwithstanding its abstinence, it did 

 not apparently fall away. But it was distressing to watch 



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