286 UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



purple, and yellow flowers scattered among the grass, it might 

 be easily overlooked. Swahilies say this little frog poisons cattle. 

 It is quite possible that cattle out grazing may swallow some 

 of them. As Nature did not intend that cows should devour 

 frogs, it is not at all improbable that gastric irritation may be 

 set up by the unnatural food, and in severe cases may pro- 

 duce death. These little frogs are very numerous in certain 

 localities ; hundreds could have been collected easily. A few 

 days later I happened to look at the pickle-jar which con- 

 tained my specimen. I found the spirits had been upset, and 

 the specimen, dried up and spoiled, had to be thrown away. 

 But the remarkable differences which exist among frogs in 

 colour, size, shape, and habits, and which 1, with an unin- 

 terested eye, have noticed, convinces me that any one, willing 

 to devote some spare moments to this particular subject, would 

 find it well worth his while. 



Chameleons. — Among the many interesting objects the tra- 

 veller meets with, the chameleon deserves mention. If for 

 nothing else, the ludicrous mobility of its eyes must arrest one's 

 attention. The chameleon has a perpetual stiff neck, the apo- 

 plectic shortness of which prevents the head being turned. 

 Kindly Nature has, however, provided abundant compensation, 

 by enabling the chameleon to look behind without having the 

 trouble of turning round, and to look straight up without having 

 to move the head. 



To watch the eye of the chameleon gaze upward, then 

 straight behind, now downwards, now forwards, is sufficiently 

 amusing ; but when the two eyes are seen to have the power 

 of moving perfectly independently of each other, one eye 

 staring stonily backward, and the other eye fixed in heavenly 

 rapture upward, and after various other squinting gymnastics, 

 both eyes suddenly shoot back and assume a normal position ; 

 then the effect is decidedly laughable. In squinting human eyes, 

 only one eye does really the work of seeing, the other eye, for 

 the matter of that, might be closed or non-existent ; the brain 

 taking cognizance of what the one eye reports to it, and ignoring 

 all impressions on the other eye. But in the squinting exercises 

 of the chameleon, both eyes, whether working in unison or 

 independently, have what they communicate to the brain 

 impartially attended to. 



The fore-foot of the chameleon has two of the four toes 



