2 4 The Poets and Nature. 



the coast ; and the flying lizards, beauteous beyond descrip- 

 tion, that slide through the air from tree to tree on their 

 wing-like parachutes ; and, most curious perhaps of all, the 

 frilled lizard, which, if it were only the size of a camel, 

 might have frightened all the Seven Champions out of their 

 wits. And what can be said too enthusiastic for such 

 a thing as the Moloch, a mass of spines and prickles, 

 with forty horns on the tip of its nose, and ferociously 

 thorned to the tip of its tail ? or the geckos, the familiar but 

 wondrous creatures that sleep all through a summer's day 

 upon the ceiling and never drop off, but if they are startled 

 drop their tails ? or the chameleon, that has such a trans- 

 parent skin that its emotions can be read through it ? 



Human beings have been known to " blush crimson " or 

 turn "deathly pale." The choleric man turns vicious red 

 when out of temper, the Asiatic green when terrified. But 

 the chameleon beats us all. It has no expression whatever 

 on its face, so it makes up for it on its body. You can tell 

 what it is thinking about by the colour of its body. How 

 the poets delighted in the creature ! 



" As the chameleon, who is known 

 To have no colours of his own , 

 But borrows from his neighbour's hue 

 His white or black, his green or blue, 

 And struts as much in ready light, 

 Which credit gives him upon sight, 

 As if the rainbow were in tail 

 Settled on him and his heirs male." Prior. 



Allan Ramsay adapts an old fable excellently in his poem 

 on the beast. One man swears it is blue. He saw it that 

 very morning, and so cannot be wrong. Another had seen 

 it that evening, only an hour ago, and he will stake his life 

 on it, it was green. From argument it comes to quarrelling, 

 and " frae words there had been cuff and kick," but a third 

 man happens to come along. He asks the reason for such 

 high words between neighbours, and they tell him. At 



