NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 353 



scriptions will suffice for those who are not anxious to 

 penetrate into the depths of the sanitary and other 

 mysteries of Democritus and Co. 



That zoologists should have considered this form as 

 isolated, aberrant as it appears to be from the general 

 lacertian structure, cannot be matter of surprise. It 

 seems to stand alone : but if we closely examine its 

 organization, we shall find that the apparent isolation is 

 merely a modification of different parts adapted to the 

 wants of the animal, and that the sessile chamseleon is 

 as much a lizard as the nimble Lacerta agilis, that 

 vanishes from the sunbeam wherein it is basking before 

 the dazzled eye of the intruder has well made out its 

 colours. The form of the extremities throughout the 

 tribe is exactly fitted to the condition to which it has 

 pleased the Great Disposer to call them, and these con- 

 ditions we find gradually altered, now dwindling,* now 

 the front pair vanishing,! then the posterior pair oblite- 

 rated, with the front pair tolerably developed,! till, at 

 last, the whole of the extremities disappear ; and, in the 

 innocent but much-persecuted blind-worm, § we have a 

 lizard in an entirely serpentine form. 



Nature is inexhaustible. The wizard conquered the 

 indefatigable demon who ' split Eildon Hills in three' in 

 one night, by tasking him to make ropes of sea-sand. 

 According to the usual natural instruments of progres- 

 sion, the task of endowing a creature with rapid motion 



* ChamcBsaura. ' t Bipes. X Chirotes. 



§ Anguis fragilis. I have frequently seen this innocuous animal 

 put to death as the most poisonous of serpents. The answer to 

 my remonstrances has been, that I ' knew nothing about it ; an 

 adder was bad enough, but this was an asker, with more poison in 

 him than all the rest put together. No one that he bites ever 

 recovers.' This last assertion was not far from the truth ; for the 

 harmless creature never bites except what it eats— insects and 

 worms. 



