The eyeballs are covered with a thick wrinkled skin, except a small aperture at the tip, which can be opened and closed like our own eyelids.

The changing colour of the Chameleon has been long known, though there are many mistaken ideas concerning it.

The reptile does not necessarily assume the colour of any object on which it is placed, but sometimes takes a totally different colour. Thus, if my Chameleon happened to come upon any scarlet substance, the colour immediately became black, covered with innumerable circular spots of light yellow. The change was so instantaneous that, as it crawled on the scarlet cloth, the colour would alter, and the fore-part of the body would be covered with yellow spots, while the hinder parts retained their dull black. Scarlet always annoyed the Chameleon, and it tried to escape whenever it found itself near any substance of the obnoxious hue.

The normal colour was undoubtedly black, with a slight tinge of grey. But in a short time the whole creature would become a vivid verdigris green, and, while the spectator was watching it, the legs would become banded with rings of bright yellow, and spots and streaks of the same colour would appear on the head and body.

When it was excited either by anger or by expectation-as, for example, when it heard a large fly buzzing near it-the colours were singularly beautiful, almost exactly resembling in hue and arrangement those of the jaguar. Of all the colours, green seemed generally to predominate, but the creature would pass so rapidly from one colour to another that it was scarcely possible to follow the various gradations of hue.

Some persons have imagined that the variation of colour depends on the wants and passions of the animal. This is not the case. The change is often caused by mental emotion, but is not dependent on it; and I believe that the animal has no control whatever over its colour. The best proof of this assertion may be found in the fact that my own Chameleon changed colour several times after its death; and, indeed, as long as I had the dead body before me, changes of hue were taking place.

The food of the Chameleon consists of insects, mostly flies, which it catches by means of its tongue, which can be protruded

to an astonishing distance. The tongue is nearly cylindrical, and is furnished at the tip with a slight cavity, which is filled with a very glutinous secretion. When the Chameleon sees a fly or other insect, it gently protrudes the tongue once or twice, as if taking aim, like a billiard-player with his cue, and then, with a moderately smart stroke, carries off the insect on the glutinous tip of the tongue. The force with which the Chameleon strikes is really wonderful. My own specimen used to look for flies from my hand, and at first I was as much surprised with the force of the blow struck by the tongue as I was with the grasping power of the feet.

Among the wild legends with which the earlier naturalists adorned their accounts of all animals with which they were not personally familiar, those of the Chameleon are not the least curious. "Themselves," writes Topsel, an author of the sixteenth century," are very gentle, never exasperated but when they are about wilde fig-trees.

They have for their enemies the serpent, the crow, and the hawk. When the hungry serpent doth assault them, they defend themselves in this manner, as Alexander Mindius writeth. They take in their mouths a broad and strong stalk, under protection of which, as under a buckler, they defend themselves against their enemy the serpent, by reason that the stalk is broader than the serpent can gripe in his mouth, and the other parts of the chamæleon so firm and hard as the serpent cannot hurt them: he laboureth but in vain to get a prey, so long as the stalk is in the chamæleon's mouth.

"But if the chamæleon at any time see a serpent taking the air, and sunning himself under some green tree, he climbeth up into that tree, and setteth himself directly over the serpent; then out of his mouth he casteth a thread, like a spider, at the end of which hangeth a drop of poyson as bright as any pearl; by this string he letteth down the poyson upon the serpent, which, lighting upon it, killeth it immediately.

"And Scaliger reporteth a greater wonder than this in the description of the chamæleon; for he saith, if the boughs of the tree so grow as the perpendicular line cannot fall directly upon the serpent, then he so correcteth and guideth it with his forefeet that it falleth upon the serpent within the mark of a hair's breadth.

"The raven and the crow are also at variance with the chamæleon, and so great is the adverse nature betwixt these twain, that if the crow eat of the chamæleon being slain by him, he dyeth for it except he recover his life by a bay-leaf, even as the elephant, after he hath devoured a chamæleon, saveth his life by eating of the wilde olive-tree.

"But the greatest wonder of all is the hostility which Pliny reporteth to be betwixt the chamæleon and the hawk. For he writeth that when a hawk flyeth over a chamæleon, she hath no power to resist the chamæleon, but falleth down before it, yeelding both her life and her limbs to be devoured by it, and thus that devourer that liveth upon the prey and blood of others hath no power to save her own life from this little beast."

It may here be remarked that the frog was said to save itself from the water-ducks by seizing a stick crosswise in its mouth, so that when the duck came to seize its prey, the stick came across the angles of the jaws, and prevented the frog from being swallowed.

So much for the Chameleon. We will now take the NILOTIC MONITOR (Hydrosaurus niloticus) and the LAND MONITOR (Psammosaurus scincus), the other reptiles which have been conjectured to be the real representatives of the Koach.

These lizards attain to some size, the former sometimes measuring six feet in length, and the latter but a foot or so less. Of the two, the Land Monitor, being the more common, both in Palestine and Egypt, has perhaps the best claim to be considered as the Koach of Scripture. It is sometimes called the Land Crocodile. It is a carnivorous animal, feeding upon other reptiles and the smaller mammalia, and is very fond of the eggs of the crocodile, which it destroys in great numbers, and is in consequence much venerated by the inhabitants of the country about the Nile.

The theory that this reptile may be the Koach of Leviticus is strengthened by the fact that even at the present day it is cooked and eaten by the natives, whereas the chameleon is so small and bony that scarcely any one would take the trouble of cooking it.

The Nilotic Monitor shares the same habit of devouring crocodiles' eggs, and consequently shares the respect of those

who are endangered by the crocodile. It even eats the young crocodiles after they are hatched, chasing them through the water, and capturing them by means of its superior swiftness. It may be distinguished from the Land Monitor by the elevated keel which runs along the whole of the spine from the neck to the very end of the long tail. The general colour of the Nilotic Monitor is olive-grey, mottled with black. On the back of the neck are a series of curved bands of a whitish yellow.

IT is mentioned on page 69, that the word anâkah, which is translated as "ferret" in Levit. xi. 30, is certainly a lizard, and in all probability is one of the Geckos. I have therefore introduced into the same illustration on page 535 the commonest species of Gecko found in Palestine. The reader will observe the flat, fanlike expansions at the ends of the toes, by which it is able to adhere to flat surfaces.

SERPENTS.

Serpents in general-Signification of the Hebrew word Nachash-Various passages in which the Nachash is mentioned-The fiery Serpents of the wildernessExplanation of the words "flying" and "fiery" as applied to Serpents-Haunts of the Serpent-The Cobra, or Asp of Scripture-Meaning of the word Pethen -The deaf Adder that stoppeth her ear--Serpent-charming in the East-Principle on which the charmers work- Sluggishness of the Serpent natureCeremony of initiation into Serpent-charming-Theories respecting the deaf Adder-Luis of Grenada's sermon-The Cerastes, or Horned Serpent--Appearance and habits of the reptile-The "Adder in the path."

As we have seen that so much looseness of nomenclature prevailed among the Hebrews even with regard to the mammalia, birds, and lizards, we can but expect that the names of the Serpents will be equally difficult to identify.

No less than seven names are employed in the Old Testament to denote some species of Serpent; but there are only two which can be identified with any certainty, four others being left to

mere conjecture, and one being clearly a word which, like our snake or serpent, is a word not restricted to any particular: species, but signifying Serpents in general. This word is náchâsh (pronounced nah-kahsh). It is unfortunate that the word is so variously translated in different passages of Scripture, and we cannot do better than to follow it through the Old Testament, so as to bring all the passages under our glance.

The first mention of the Nâchâsh occurs in Gen. iii., in the well-known passage where the Serpent is said to be more subtle than all the beasts of the field, the wisdom or subtlety of the Serpent having evidently an allegorical and not a categorical signification. We find the same symbolism employed in the New Testament, the disciples of our Lord being told to be "wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."

Allusion is made to the gliding movement of the Serpent tribe in Prov. xxx. 19. On this part of the subject little need be said, except that the movements of the Serpent are owing to the mobility of the ribs, which are pushed forward in succession and drawn back again, so as to catch against any inequality of the ground. This power is increased by the structure of the scales. Those of the upper part of the body, which are not used for locomotion, are shaped something like the scales of a fish; but those of the lower part of the body, which come in contact with the ground, are broad belts, each overlapping the other, and each connected with one pair of ribs.

When, therefore, the Serpent pushes forward the ribs, the edges of the scaly belts will catch against the slightest projection, and are able to give a very powerful impetus to the body. It is scarcely possible to drag a snake backwards over rough ground; while on a smooth surface, such as glass, the Serpent would be totally unable to proceed. This, however, was not likely to have been studied by the ancient Hebrews, who were among the most unobservant of mankind with regard to details of natural history: it is, therefore, no wonder that the gliding of the Serpent should strike the writer of the proverb in question as a mystery which he could not explain.

The poisonous nature of some of the Serpents is mentioned in several passages of Scripture; and it will be seen that the ancient Hebrews, like many modern Europeans, believed that the poison lay in the forked tongue. See, for example, Ps. lviii. 4: "Their