LIZARDS. 427 
large for the animal to grasp with its feet, it coils round 
them its long, prehensile tail, and fixes its claws strongly 
into the bark. When walking on the ground, it steps for- 
ward in an extremely cautious manner, seeming never to 
lift one foot until it is well assured of the firmness of the 
rest. From these precautions, its motions have a ridicu- 
lous appearance of gravity, when contrasted with the 
smallness of its size, and the activity that might be ex- 
pected from an animal so nearly allied to some of the 
most lively in the creation. Though the Chameleon is 
repulsive in its appearance, it is perfectly harmless. It 
feeds only on insects, for which the structure of its tongue 
is well adapted, being long and protrusive, and furnished 
with a dilated, glutinous, and somewhat tubular tip. 
With this it seizes on insects with the greatest ease, dart- 
ing it out and immediately retracting it, with the prey 
thus secured, which it swallows whole. The strange no- 
tion that Chameleons were able to feed on air, seems to 
have arisen merely from the circumstance of these ani- 
mals, like all others of the Lizard family, being able to 
subsist for a great length of time without food. The 
eyes of the Chameleon have a singular property of look- 
ing at the same instant in different directions ; one of 
them may be seen to move when the other is at rest, or 
one will be directed forward, whilst the other is attending 
to some object behind ; or in a similar manner upward 
and downward. It has the power of inflating its body to 
double its ordinary size, and at these times it is transpa- 
rent. It can undoubtedly change its colour ; but it is not 
true that it takes that of any object it may be near. On 
the contrary, its change of colour depends on its being 
exposed to a very strong light ; and it only changes from 
its natural dull grey to a beautiful green, spotted un- 
equally with red. Africa is the native country of the 
Chameleons, of which there are fourteen species ; but two 
of them are found also in different parts of Asia and New 
