216 BLUEFIELDS. 



merous black dots, a species of Aulostoma* , to which 

 the negroes give the name of Soap-fish. Here, too, 

 is what they call a Flounder, but truly a kind of 

 Turbot {Rhombus argus), a handsomely marked fish, 

 being studded all over the upper side with large blue 

 rings, inclosing pale yellow areas on a dusky brown 

 ground-colour. There are many other things, young 

 Sharks, Hedgehog-fishes, Trunk-fishes, et hoc genus 

 omne ; — but these we must leave, and make the 

 best of our way back to Bluefields, or we shall not 

 be in time for " second breakfast." 



The faculty possessed by certain small species of 

 the Iguaniform tribe of Lizards, of effecting rapid 

 and strongly marked changes in the colours of their 

 bodies, is exceedingly interesting. The extent of 

 these changes is scarcely inferior to that to which the 

 same singular power is exercised by the Chameleons 

 of the Old World; and if the latter display pecu- 

 liarities of structure more curious to the naturalist, 

 the Anoles have the advantage of a form and motions 

 as graceful and elegant as the coup d'ceil of the 

 Chameleons is hideous, I have already alluded to 

 this metachrosis in the Dactyloa Edwardsii, and it no 

 less remarkably characterizes the smaller and more 

 agreeable species of the restricted genus Anolis. Two 



* This is, doubtless, the A. coloratum of Miiller and Troschel 

 (Ann. and Mag. of N. H., July, 1848); but the character by which 

 they distinguish it from J. Chinensis, — the want of brown spots on 

 the head, — is valueless ; as I have had specimens in which the spots 

 were abundant in that part. The fact is, that individuals vary much 

 in the amount of the maculation. 



