CHAMELEON.] NATURAL HISTORY. 61 



colour is somewhat black with black speckles therein. And 

 this diversity is in all his body, and namely in the eyes, 

 and also in the tail, and is full heavy in moving and foul 

 of colour in his death, and what is in his body is but of 

 little flesh ; and hath little blood, but in the head, and in 

 the end of the tail, where he hath little blood and also 

 in the heart, and in the veins that come therefrom ; and 

 also hath blood about the eyes, though it be right little. 

 His most might and strength is against the kind of gos- 

 hawks ; for he draweth them, and they fly to him, and he 

 taketh them wilfully to other beasts to be devoured. If 

 his head and his throat be set afire with oaken wood, it 

 maketh both rain and thunder. In sickness he feigneth 

 himself soft and mild, though he be cruel. And it is said, 

 that the Chameleon liveth only by air, and the mole by 

 earth, and the herring by water, and the cricket [sala- 

 mander (Bartholomew^ by fire. 



Bartholomew (Berthelet], bk. xviii. 21. 



IF the Chameleon at any time see a serpent taking the 

 air, and sunning himself under some green tree, he climbeth 

 up into that tree, and settleth himself directly over the 

 serpent, then out of his mouth he casteth a thread like a 

 spider, at the end whereof hangeth a drop of poison as 

 bright as any pearl, which lighting upon the serpent 

 killeth it immediately. The right claw of the fore-feet, 

 bound to the left arm with the skin of his cheeks, is good 

 against robberies and terrors of the night, and the right 

 pap against all fears. If the left foot be scorched in a 

 furnace with the herb Chameleon, and afterward putting a 

 little ointment to it, and made into little pasties, so being 

 carried about in a wooden box, it maketh the party to go 

 invisible. Likewise the liver dissolveth amorous enchant- 

 ments. The entrails and dung of this beast washed in the 

 urine of an ape, and hung up at our enemies' gates, 

 causeth reconciliation. With the tail they bring serpents 

 asleep, and stay the flowing of the floods and waters ; the 

 same mingled with cedar and myrrh, bound to two rods 

 of palm, and struck upon water, causeth all things that 



Ke contained in the same water to appear. 

 Topsell, " History of Serpents," pp. 675-6. 



