WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 
the green foliage or on the brown trunks or stems of the 
trees on which it often remains motionless and unseen, so 
completely disguised is it by its assumed colour. The 
food of the chameleon consists of insects, such as beetles, 
flies, and caterpillars, in fact almost any small living 
creature. The mode of feeding, which is by darting forth 
with the rapidity of lightning its long tongue, is so well 
known that it is only in passing we mention it, but it 
would be well to say something about the means of 
keeping in our climate the animal during the winter 
months. 
The reptile requires to be kept in a warm place, and 
exj^osed as much as possible to the sun’s rays. The food 
may consist of common black beetles, so troublesome in 
kitchens, which can be obtained by using the ordinary 
beetle-trap by which they are caught alive, and make a 
capital meal. A few gentles, which can always be obtained 
from the fishing-tackle makers, and which, placed in a small 
dish of sand in the glass case, soon hatch out from the 
warmth of the room, and produce a good stock of flies. 
In winter, in the event of these methods failing, the well- 
known mealworms can be obtained all the year round, and 
these, put into a glass or well-glazed saucer, will be taken 
by the chameleon. 
A little sugar-and-water in a dish is also desirable, as it 
frequently drinks or thrusts its tongue into the fluid, and 
seems to like it. Another disputed point has been argued 
with considerable warmth in reference to the mode of 
reproduction ; some said that the chameleon lays eggs, 
which are afterwards hatched, while others declared most 
positively that they produce their young alive ; thus, as 
in the old fable, the controversy became hot, and was 
carried on until the patience of all parties was exhausted. 
In truth, they were both, at one and the same time, quite 
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