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The Long-Tongued Chameleon

F THE tree lizards, or stantly passing over its body. Sometimes those which rarely it would be striped like a zebra with light crawl on the ground yellow, or covered with circular yellow and never enter the spots. Sometimes it was all chestnut and water, the chameleon black like a leopard, and sometimes it is the most noticeable. was brilliant green. Sometimes it would This singular reptile be gray, covered with black spots; and has long been famous for its once, when it was sitting on a branch, it power of changing its color, took the hue of the autumnal leaves so a property, however, which exactly that it could scarcely be distinhas been greatly exaggerated. guished from them."

Let us now watch a Chameleon on the outlook for food. Clinging securely to one or more twigs by means of its claw- The Chameleon's food consists of insects, mostly of flies, and, like many other reptiles, it is able to go for months with out food, a fact which gave rise to the like feet and prehensile tail, it awaits its belief that the Chameleon lived on the prey. It remains petrified in the same air. To judge by externals, there never spot for hours, as if it were of iron cast was an animal less fitted than the chame- in a mould. But its large eyes, which leon for capturing anything as active as are covered over to the dimensions of a a fly, and yet we shall see that the lizard very small shining speck with hard lids, is well-equipped for this purpose. The are incessantly turning in every direction tongue is the instrument by which the to catch a glimpse of passing prey. One fly is captured, being first deliberately of these eyes looks forward and downaimed, like a billiard-player aiming a ward, the other upward and backward, stroke with his cue, and then darted out turning incessantly about. with singular velocity. This member At last a grasshopper or a fly settles is very muscular, and is furnished at the nearby. One of the rolling eyes instantly tip with a kind of sticky secretion which notes the fact, and now the Chameleon causes the fly to adhere to it. Its mouth opens his mouth just enough to let the tip of is well furnished with teeth, which are his thick, cylindrical tongue be seen. set firmly into its jaw, and enable it to another moment out leaps the wonderful bruise the insects after getting them into tongue missile with unerring certainty, its mouth by means of the tongue. swift as an arrow, and the captured In In speaking of the changes of color in booty is in the lizard's mouth. If the the Chameleon, Mr. Wood, the writer on post chosen is fruitful in game, the natural history, says: "I kept a Chame- Chameleon will not stir for hours. But leon for a long time, and carefully watched if it yields only little the creature overits changes of color. Its primary hue comes its laziness and starts out a huntwas gray-black, but other colors were con- ing. Our predatory marksman will now