AND LOWER EGYPT. 13$ 



cut out in the rock on the coast, and which Euro- 

 peans have decorated, improperly enough, with 

 the name of Cleopatra s baths> seem to be a con- 

 tinuation of them. 



At the entrance of the catacombs I have seen 

 several eameieons *. It is now well known, that 

 the changing of their colours is not to be ascribed 

 to the objects presented to them ; that their dif- 

 ferent affections increase or diminish the intensity 

 of the tints, with which the very delicate skin 

 which covers them is, as it were, marbled : that 

 they are not satisfied with nourishment so unsub- 

 stantial as air ; that they require more solid ali- 

 ment, and swallow flies and other insects ; and that, 

 finally, the marvellous stories which have been told 

 respecting this species of lizard, are merely a tissue 

 of fictions, which have disgraced the science of na- 

 ture down to this day. I have preservedsome eame- 

 ieons, not that I was tempted to repeat the experi- 

 ment of Cornelius Le Bruyn, who after having 

 gravely assured us, that the eameieons which he 

 kept in his apartment, at Smyrna, lived on air, adds, 

 that they died one after another, in a very short 

 space of time-}-; but I wished to satisfy myself to 

 what a point they could subsist without food. I 



* Cameleon. Lacepede, Natural History of oviparous Qua- 

 drupeds. — Lacerta chameleon. Liii. 



f Voyage to the Levant, vo!. i. p. 515. 



had 



