304 plint's natural histobt. Book VIII. 



pale colour. It has a little fiesh about the head, the jaws, 

 and the root of the tail, but none whatever on the rest of the 

 body. It has no blood whatever, except in the heart and 

 about the eyes, and its entrails are without a spleen.** It 

 conceals itself during the winter months, just like the lizard. 



CHAP. 52. OTHEK ANIMALS WHICH CHANGE COtOUE ; THE 



TARANnUS, THE ITCAON, AND THE THOS. 



The tarandrus," too, of the Scythians, changes its colour, 

 but this is the case with none of the animals wHch are covered 

 with hair, except the lycaon'* of India, which is said to have 

 a mane on the neck. But with respect to the thos,^ (which is 

 a 8peci6s of wolf, differing from the common kind in having a 

 larger body and very short legs, leaping with great activity, 

 living by tiie chase, and never attacking man) ; it changes its 



popular poem of the Cliameleon. The animal, indeed, assumes various 

 shades or tints, hut the changes depend upon internal or constitutional 

 causes, not any external ohject. ^lian, Anim. Nat. B. ii. c. 14, refers to 

 the change of colour, hut does not allude to its colour having any con- 

 nection with that of the object with which it comes in contact. — B. 



^ The quantity of muscular fibre and blood in the chameleon is no 

 doubt small in proportion to the bulk of the animal, although not much 

 less than in other animals of the same natural order ; its spleen is very 

 minute, as CuTier says, not larger than the seed of a lentil. — B. 



" Cuvier remarks, that this account is from the anonymous treatise 

 De Mirah. Axiscult. p. 1152, and from Theophrastus ; and that it was pro- 

 bably (derived, in the first instance, from the imperfect account which the 

 ancients possessed of the reindeer, the hair of which animal becomes 

 nearly white in the winter, and in the summer of a brown or grey colour. 

 Bekmann, however, who has written a commentary on the above-mentioned 

 treatise, supposes that the taraudrus is the elk. Cuvier conceives, that the 

 animal described by Caesar, Bell. Gall. B. vi. c. 26, as inhabiting the 

 Heroynian Forest, which he designates as " bos cervi figyra," is the rein- 

 deer; and suggests that "tarandrus" may have originated in the German, 

 daji rennthier. Ajasson, vol, vi. pp. 453, 464 ; Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 456, 457. 

 JEMsa, Anim. Nat. B. ii. c. 16, speaks of the change of colour in the ta- 

 randrus in a way which does not correspond with any animal known to 

 exist. — B. Pliny's stories of the tarandrus, thos, and chameleon are ridi- 

 culed by Eabelais, B. iv, c. 3. 



«s Cuvier supposes that the lycaon of Pliny is the Indian tiger, which 

 has a mane ; but what is said of its change of colour is incorrect. — B. 



*' Naturalists have differed respecting the identity of the animal here 

 described, but Cuvier conceives, that Bochart has proved it to be the canis 

 aureus chakal (jackal) of Linnaeus. The description given by Aiistotle, 

 Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 17, and B. ix. c. 44, agrees with this supposition; 

 it is also described by Oppian, Halieut. B. ii. c. 615. — B. 



