CHAM2ELE0N VULGARIS. 
227 
Measurements of Egyptian ex 
amples of C 
. vulgaris, 6 
and 
2 (in millim.). 
Sex. 
Snout 
to 
vent. 
Tail. 
Snout to 
tip of 
parietal 
crest. 
Tip of 
parietal 
crest to 
angle of 
mouth. 
Length 
of 
gape. 
Breadth 
of 
head. 
Length 
of fore 
limb. 
Length 
of hind 
limb. 
Length 
of fore 
foot. 
Length 
of hind 
foot. 
Locality. 
6 ■■ 
135 
135 
125 
97 
41 
42 
28 
28-7 
27 
28 
IS 
22-5 
54 
53 
53 
56-5 
12 
12 
15 
14 
Ain Musa. 
Marsa Matru. 
This species is distributed over Northern Africa, from Mogador to Egypt. In Asia 
it is found in the Sinaitic Peninsula, in Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor, and in some 
of the neighbouring islands, such as Cyprus, Rhodes, Chios, Xanthus, &c, and in 
Europe, in Southern Spain and along the coast of Turkey. 
In the ' Description de l'Egypte ' no information is given whence the individual 
figured in that work was obtained. 
It is common at Marsa Matru, 150 miles to the west of Alexandria, but I have 
never succeeded in obtaining it in the delta. It is present, however, in the oasis of 
Ain Musa to the east of Suez, into which it has probably been introduced by human 
agency, possibly many centuries ago, from one or other of the more or less cultivated 
valleys on the way to Mount Sinai, unless the oasis itself be the last vestige of what 
may once have been an extensive fertile region conterminous with the valleys, but now 
nearly obliterated by the encroachment of the sands of the desert. 
Mr. Noel Beyts, of Suez, informs me that he has heard from authentic sources that 
the chameleon now exists in the cultivated gardens on the banks of the Freshwater 
Canal at Suez, and he says that as there was no vegetation of any description near Suez 
before the Freshwater Canal was made, about 25 years ago, he presumes that it 
was brought from the oasis of Ain Musa ; indeed he believes that chameleons were 
purposely introduced into the gardens surrounding the works connected with the 
water-supply of Suez. 
The Arabic name of the chameleon is *->)->j-=- = hirl)dya, according to my informant, 
Dr. W. Innes (Cameron, \j-^=hirbd). The natives do not distinguish the one species 
from the other. 
Kuhl, in his meagre description of C. africanus, refers to fig. 1, pi. 82, of the first 
vol. of Seba, which represents a chameleon with a well-developed tarsal spur and an 
occipital dermal lobe, and consequently not C. vulgaris, but possibly either C. calcarifer 
or C. calcaratus. 
The C. auratus was founded on a specimen of C. vulgaris from Arabia. 
The direction and curvature of the parietal crest may vary considerably, as in some 
2g 2 
