CHAPTER II. 



THE CHAMELEON. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. VA- 

 RIOUS OPINIONS. PHENOMENA OF CHANGE, BY 



VARIOUS OBSERVERS. DIFFERENT DEDUCTIONS. 



THE TEMPERATURE OF THE CHANGING SHADES 



AND SPOTS ADDUCED AS A PROOF OF THEIR DE- 

 PENDENCE ON CIRCULATION. ANALOGICAL PHE- 

 NOMENA. 



THE chameleon is a curious and interesting ani- 

 mal, and exhibits features of a very unusual kind. 

 The earlier naturalists could not well overlook a 

 character so extraordinary ; and it found a place in 

 their pages. Fable has drawn on its changes, and 

 poetry has consecrated these wonders by the witchery 

 of song; neither is there a more singular train of 

 phenomena, nor a problem of more difficult solution. 

 Its physiology is of no ordinary kind ; and the singu- 

 lar mutability to which the creature is subject involves 

 a question of an uncommon complexion. 



The Chamceko vulgaris, or common chameleon, is 

 a native of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Its wonderful 

 changes have excited attention in every age, and 

 become proverbial. This remarkable phenomenon is 

 not exclusively peculiar to the chameleon ; for it 

 would appear that both the agama and polychlorus 

 occasionally display various colours, even the deep 

 black which the chameleon sometimes assumes occurs 

 also in them. To account for these changeable hues, 

 seems to have exhausted the imagination and inge- 

 nuity of the observers. Thus, Linnaeus and Hassel- 



