266 



KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



because it was full of eggs in the progress of 

 development, which must have made great 

 demands on its constitution, and I had fre- 

 quently seen chameleons take insects freely ; 

 of which more anon. One facetious friend 

 would never call it anything but Martha 

 Taylor ; in memory, I suppose, of the fasting 

 woman of Derbyshire, who, in^ consequence 

 of a blow on the back, fell into such a pros- 

 tration of appetite, that she took hardly any 

 sustenance, but some drops with a feather, 

 from Christmas, 1667, for thirteen months, 

 sleeping but little all the time. After laying 

 a large number of apparently perfect eggs, 

 my chameleon died ; and Mrs. M. announced 

 the event to me as a " happy release." 



Le Bruyn, in his " Voyage to the Levant," 

 declares that the chameleons which he kept 

 in his apartment at Smyrna lived on air, 

 adding, however, that they died one after 

 another in a short time. Sonnini, who saw 

 several of them at the entrance of the cata- 

 combs at Alexandria, wishing to satisfy 

 himself how long they could subsist without 

 food, employed every precaution to prevent 

 their having any, leaving them, however, 

 exposed to the open air. They lived under 

 these conditions for twenty days, but soon 

 began to dwindle. When they were first 

 caught they were plump, but they soon be- 

 came very thin. They gradually lost their 

 agility and their colors with their good con- 

 dition ; their skins became livid and wrinkled, 

 and adhered close to the bone, so that, to use 

 his own expression, they had the appearance 

 of being dried before they ceased to exist. 

 The apparent good condition of my cha- 

 meleon may have been due to its good plight 

 when I received it ; most oviparous animals, 

 at the time when the eg?s are in the early 

 process of formation, being well fed and 

 tilled, as we see in the case of fish. As the 

 eggs are developed the system is drained, 

 till at last, when they are fully formed, the 

 fish is nearly worthless as food, all its good- 

 ness having gone into the roe. In the case 

 of insects — the silk moth, for example — no 

 sustenance is taken after the worm has woven 

 the shroud, from whose cerements it is to 

 burst forth made perfect. The imago has 

 every sign of a well-filled system, till, in 

 obedience to the great law of nature, the 

 eggs are laid ; and the parents having finished 

 the work which they were appointed to per- 

 form, die without having any support, save 

 that which they derive from the sun and air. 

 The power of abstinence, even in those warm- 

 blooded animals whose food is not alwa} T s 

 ready for them — the carnivora, for instance 

 — is very great ; and in the reptiles generally 

 most remarkable. The belief that the cha- 

 meleon fed on air only was general amongst 

 the ancients. The mode in which it gulps 

 the air for respiration favored this notion. 



Red and white were supposed to be the 

 colors which it could never assume. The 

 former color no one has recorded as visible 

 upon the chameleon's skin throughout ; but 

 the latter has been mentioned both in prose 

 and poetry. A vir nobilissimus fide dignus 

 related to Aldrovand, that he wrapped up 

 one s \vhich had been presented to him in a 

 white handkerchief ; and when he arrived at 

 home, proceeded to open it in order to 

 examine the animal, but could see nothing 

 but the handkerchief. At last he detected 

 the chameleon, which had so completely ac- 

 quired the whiteness of the wrapper as to be 

 invisible. 



The gentlemen who nearly lost their 

 temper in disputing about the color of one 

 of these reptiles were all put in the wrong 

 by him who 



Produc'd the beast, and lo ! 'twas white. 



My experience supports the conclusions of 

 Sonnini and Milne Edwards as to the muta- 

 bility of color. When the chameleon kept 

 by me first came into my possession, and was 

 comparatively vigorous, substances of various 

 colors were placed near it without its ever 

 altering its hue accordingly, as far as I could 

 perceive. It would roll its eye and bring it to 

 bear on the subject, and sometimes the tints 

 of the skin would vary, but not in unison 

 with the adjacent color. When it was 

 clinging to the dark bronze-work of the 

 fender, enjoying the heat of the fire, I some- 

 times thought that its hue became more 

 sombre : but this effect was by no means 

 constant. Grey, Isabella color, and pale 

 yellow, with the spots or granules varying 

 into green, greyish, or blackish, were the pre- 

 vailing changes ; but I never saw it white. 

 I have seen it of a whitey-brown color ; and 

 such was its prevailing hue in its latter days 

 and at its death. 



The French Academicians seem to have 

 come to the conclusion that the sun was a 

 principal agent in such changes. They 

 describe the color of the eminences of their 

 chameleon, when it was at rest in the shade, 

 and had remained a long time undisturbed, 

 as of a bluish grey, except under the feet, 

 where it was white inclining to yellow, and 

 the intervals of the granules of the skin were 

 of a pale and yellowish red. This changed 

 when the animal was in the sun ; and all the 

 parts of its body which were illuminated 

 altered from their bluish color to a brownish 

 grey, inclining to tawny. The rest of the 

 skin, which was not illuminated by the sun, 

 changed from grey into several lively shining 

 colors, forming spots about half a finger's 

 breadth, reaching from the crest of the spine 

 to the middle of the back ; and others ap- 

 peared on the ribs, forelegs, and tail. All 

 the spots were of an Isabella color, through 

 the mixture of a pale yellow, with which the 



