CHAMELEONS 135 



at a few inches' distance to see where the lizard began and the 

 wood ended ; and in the forest it would be impossible to dis- 

 tinguish it from the branch to which it clings. It proved, on 

 being sent to England, to form a new genus. 



Chameleons are very frequently met with, not only in the 

 woods but also in the open country of Imerina ; and in our 

 gardens at the capital we often see them on the bushes or the 

 paths, from the little baby one of an inch long to the full-grown 

 one of six to eight inches. In the paths near the sanatorium one 

 may see them digging holes and depositing their eggs, which are 

 about the size of a small bean. Their colouring is often very 

 beautiful, with its shades of green and yellow and black, brown 

 and red markings, and there are certainly very rapid changes 

 of colour according to the different surroundings. The bright 

 tints they exhibit in sunshine and on leaves become dull dark 

 brown in the shade, or on dark coloured resting-places. Some- 

 times they lose all colour, for I one day saw, on the path near the 

 woods, a chameleon in the coils of a small snake, which had 

 wound itself three times round the body and was apparently 

 preparing to swallow it, beginning at the head, although it 

 seemed almost impossible that the bulky body of the chameleon 

 could pass through so small an opening. And this was a curious 

 fact : the chameleon was perfectly white. From a sentimental 

 pity for the little creature, I unwound the snake from it and 

 placed it on a bush. It was apparently uninjured and soon 

 began to resume its ordinary colouring, of which its terror had 

 temporarily deprived it. 



It is a noteworthy fact that Madagascar is one of the head- 

 quarters of the Chameleonidae, for out of fifty known species 

 twenty-one at least are found in this island ; and of the twenty- 

 five kinds which have been enumerated as having horns and 

 other remarkable processes on the head, no less than seventeen 

 are peculiar to this country. One species has a nose dilated 

 and toothed on each side ; another has the top of the head 

 conically produced ; while four species have two flat diverging 

 nasal prominences covered with large scutes ; and in yet 

 another species, the single long conical appendage to the nose is 

 flexible. The largest Madagascar chameleon known is about 

 a foot long and is called Ramilaheloka, which may perhaps be 

 (freely) translated, " Naughty old boy," probably from its 



