370 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l66g. 



animals, dilating and presently after contracting their breast for respiration, in 

 a constant and regular order; since they have seen it swell for the space of above 

 two hours, during which time it would indeed contract a little, but almost in- 

 discernibly, and also swell a little again, but with this difference, that the dila- 

 tation was more sudden and more visible, and that by long and unequal inter- 

 vals; they having also observed it to subside for a long time, and much longer 

 than swelled. 



2. That the grains [or coloured eminences] in the chamelion's skin assumed 

 various appearances, being of a bluish-grey, when the animal was in the shade 

 motionless, and had not been touched a long while, but that the paws underneath 

 were yellowish-white, and the space between the grains of a pale and yellowish- 

 red ; and that the said grey colouring him all over when at rest, and remaining on 

 the inside of the skin when flayed, (which seemed to argue it was the natural co- 

 lour) did, when exposed to the day light, change in the sun, so that all the places 

 of its body, struck by that light, took, instead of their bluish-grey, a browner 

 grey, approaching to a minim; but the rest of the skin, not shone upon by the 

 sun, changed its grey into divers brighter colours, which formed spots half an inch 

 big, of an Isabella colour, by the mixture of the yellowish white in the grains, 

 and the light brown in the ground of the skin ; the other skin not shone upon 

 by the sun, and remaining of a grey paler than ordinary, being like cloth mixed 

 of wool of divers colours, the ground continuing as before. The sun ceasing 

 to shine, the first grey returned by little and little, and being then touched by 

 one of the company, there appeared presently many very black spots on his 

 shoulders and fore-feet, which happened not when he was handled by those that 

 took care of him. Being wrapped in white linen for two or three minutes, he 

 was taken out whitish, and having kept this colour awhile, it vanished insen- 

 sibly : which experiment refutes those who give out, that the chamelion takes 

 all colours but white. Having put him on divers things of several colours, and 

 wrapped him up in them, he assumed none of their colours but the white, nei- 

 ther took he this, but the first time of the trials.* 



3. The structure and motion of his eyes turning two different ways at one 

 and the same time, which yet is not true of the chamelions of Mexico. 



4. His way of taking hold of the small branches of trees, like that of a par- 

 rot, who puts two of his claws before and two behind, whereas other birds al- 

 ways put three before and one behind. 



* The changes of colour observed in the above-mentioned grains or tubercles on the chamelion's 

 skin, would seem to depend upon the quantity of fluids contained in the cutaneous vessels ; which 

 quantity of fluids in these vessels must vary, according as the skin is more or less stretched in the 

 emphysematous swelling, which, by a peculiar structure, this animal can produce at pleasure. 



