Page:Florida Trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive.djvu/368

 More than flowers does this scorching midday sun bring out. It always seems as if under its potency the little green chameleons were drawn up as blisters from the herbage on which they like to rest. Once you get the shape of the motionless, finger-long creature in your eye you may note that it is that of an alligator whose tail fades indistinctly into the leaf or twig. But while the alligator is repellent his tiny, leaf-textured prototype fascinates, and it is easy to see how the desire to make pets of chameleons originated and grew till the law had to step in and put a stop to the wholesale cruelty which the practice engendered. He looks at you with such gentle, bird-like, bright eyes that you inadvertently reach out to stroke him. Then he gives you an example of his kind of thought transference. Surely the wee legs of the creature never could have moved him like that, but he has gone like the flashing of a thought to a place out of reach where he eyes you, as bright and immobile as before.

In Mark Twain's heaven people wished themselves from one part to another, traversing limitless space in no time. So evidently it is with the chameleon.

This tiny lizard sleeps in pale green with an immaculately white under side, a most charming nymph's nightdress. Pale green too is its fighting color, and when badly frightened the green