ORDER SAURIA, 153 



part of their bodj which they move with any swift- 

 ness, all their other movements are tardy in the ex- 

 treme. The bulk of their respiratory organ is in all 

 probability the cause of this peculiar faculty of 

 changing colour, which is not influenced, as has been 

 supposed, by the bodies on which they happen to be 

 placed, but by their wants and passions. The lungs, 

 in fact, render them more or less transparent, con- 

 strain the blood more or less to flow towards the 

 skin, and even colour this fluid with a greater or less 

 degree of liveliness, according as they are full or 

 empty of air. They remain continually on trees. 



The Common Cameleon. Lacerta Africana. Gm. 

 Lacep. I. xxii. Seb. I. Ixxxii. 1, Ixxxiii. 4.* 



Of Egypt and Barbary, found also in the south of 

 Spain, and again as far as the Indies ; has its hood 

 or capote pointed, and raised in a crest in front. 

 The grains of the skin are equal and crowded, the 

 upper crest denticulated as far as one half of the 

 back, the lower as far as the anus. 



The capote of the female projects less, and the 

 denticulations of the crests are smaller. 



Another species tolerably similar, and from the 

 Sechelles Islands (Cham Tigris, Cuv.), has the casque 

 like the female of the common species ; the grains of 

 the body are fine and equal, and it is distinguished 

 by a compressed and denticulated sort of wattle under 



* The Cam Trapes, Eg. Rept. iv. ,"; Cham. Carinatus Merr. Cham. Sub- 

 crnccus, id.? 



