THE CHAMELEON. 429 
much like the wooden snow-spectacles of the Esquimaux. The body is 
rather compressed, the ears are concealed under the skin, and the toes are 
separated into two opposable groups, so that the creature can hold very 
firmly upon the boughs. The tail is very long and prehensile, and is almost 
invariably seen coiled round the bough on which the reptile is standing. 
THE most familiar example of the Dendrosaura is the common CHA- 
MELEON, a reptile which is found both in Africa and Asia. 
This singular reptile has long been famous for its power of changing 
colour ; a property, however, which has been greatly exaggerated, as will be 
presently seen. Nearly all the Lizards are constitutionally torpid, though 
some of them are gifted with great rapidity of movement during certain 
seasons of the year. The Chameleon, however, carries this sluggishness to 
an extreme, its only change being from total immobility to the slightest 
imaginable degree of activity. 
When it moves along the branch upon which it is clinging, the reptile first 
raises one foot very slowly indeed, and will sometimes remain foot in air for a 
considerable time, as if it had gone to sleep in the interim. It then puts the 
foot as slowly forward, and takes a good grasp of the branch. Having 
satisfied itself that it is firmly secured, it leisurely unwinds its tail, which has 
been tightly twisted round the branch, shifts it a little forward, coils it round 
again, and then rests for a while. With the same elaborate precaution, each 
foot is successively lifted and advanced, so that the forward movements seem 
but little faster than the hour-hand of a watch. 
If placed on level ground, it is perforce obliged to walk, but it does so very 
awkwardly, though it gets over the ground faster than would be imagined 
from its movements on a tree. 
The food of the Chameleon consists of insects, mostly flies, but, like many 
other reptiles, the Chameleon is able to live for some months without taking 
food at all. This capacity for fasting, together with the singular manner in 
which the reptile takes its prey, gave rise to the absurd fable that the 
Chameleon lived only upon air. [o judge by external appearance, there 
never was an animal less fitted than the Chameleon for capturing the winged 
and active flies ; but when we come to examine its structure, we find that it 
is even better fitted for this purpose than many of the more active insect- 
eating Lizards. 
The tongue is the instrument by which the fly is captured, being first 
deliberately aimed, like a billiard-player aiming a stroke with his cué, and 
then darted out with singular velocity. This member is very muscular, and 
is furnished at the tip with a kind of viscid secretion which causes the fly to 
adhere to it. Its mouth is well furnished with teeth, which are set firmly 
into its jaw, and enable it to bruise the insects after getting them into its 
mouth by means of the tongue. 
The eyes have a most singular appearance, and are worked quite independ- 
ently of each other, one rolling backwards, while the other is directed for- 
wards or upwards. There is not the least spark of expression in the eye of 
the Chameleon, which looks about as intellectual as a green-pea with a dot 
of ink upon it. 
A few words on the change of colour will not be out of place. 
I kept a Chameleon for a long time, and carefully watched its changes of 
colour. Its primary hue was grey-black, but other colours were constantly 
passing over its body. Sometimes it would be striped like a zebra with light 
yellow, or covered with circular yellow spots. Sometimes it was all chestnut 
and black like a leopard, and sometimes it was brilliant green. Sometimes it 
would be grey, covered with black spots ; and once, when it was sitting on a 
branch, it took the hue of the autumnal leaves so exactly that it could 
