WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK. 115 



Uccello might testify from his own mistake. Alas, 

 poor man ! Being at work decorating the arch of 

 the Peruzzi, he placed in the rectangular sections 

 in the corners one of the four elements accom- 

 panied by some appropriate animal ; to the earth 

 a mole, to the water a fish, to the fire a sala- 

 mander, and, since the old notion was that a cha- 

 meleon lived on air, he was to paint one of those 

 creatures in the right place for that element. 



But Paolo had never seen a chameleon, and, 

 being deceived by the similarity of the names, 

 what did he do but paint a camel with wide-open 

 mouth swallowing the air. " And herein," says 

 Vasari, " was his simplicity certainly very great ; 

 taking the mere resemblance of the camel's name 

 as a sufficient representation of, or allusion to, an 

 animal which is like a little dry lizard, while the 

 camel is a great ungainly beast." 



