TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS. 395 



to sit on our study window and catch flies. It was a timid, 

 fearsome little thing at first, but we caught flies several 

 times and dropped them near it on the sill, and bye and 

 bye it seemed to understand that we were friendly ; then 

 we whistled to it and played soft music on a little mouth- 

 harmonica. 



Chameleons like music, even such simple music as this, 

 and it was odd to note how intently our unbidden but not 

 unwelcome guest would listen to it, its tail moving gently 

 when the music w^as slow and in quick jerks when the notes 

 w^ere loud or fast ; its head would turn from side to side, 

 its bright eyes twinkle, and ever and anon its slender neck 

 was uplifted and an odd ruby-colored sack under its throat 

 swelled out to a wonderful extent; and just so long as we 

 kept up the music just that long would it remain in the 

 same spot in rapt attention, especially so if we were whist- 

 ling. 



But, alas! our pet chameleon went the way that one's 

 pets do mostly go. After one unusually cold night, we 

 found it lying stiff* and still on the floor beneath the win- 

 dow, frozen to death, its bright eyes dim, its green coat 

 turned to the sable hue of one in mourning. ' 



But ever and anon, during the warm, sunny summer 

 days, other chameleons come darting in to see us, and even 

 though they jump on our desk we find nothing alarming 

 about them. They are very like one of our young "dish- 

 washers," who naively confessed, regarding a cat that showed 

 its fear of him, " I'm m-ighty more skeered of the cat, than 

 the cat's skeered of me ! " 



And thus, trusting that we have laid the bugbear of 

 " those dreadful little lizards," we will take a flight in the 

 air, and see how it is about the busy mud-wasps who adorn 

 our ceilings and walls after their own fashion. 



Veritable " busy-bodies " are they from the coming of 



