Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 004.djvu/104



He Observations of these Animals dissected were made in the Royall Library at Paris by some of the Ingenious Philosophers there.

Of the Camaleon which they say was an Egyptian one; they alledging, that there are two other sorts, one of Arabia, and another of Mexico) they chiefly observe: First that its contrary motions of Swelling and Un-swelling are not made as in other animals, dilating and presently after contracting their breast for Respiration, in a constant an regular order; since they have seen it swell for the space of above two hours, during which time it would indeed un-swell a little, but almost indiscernibly, and also a little swell againe, but with that difference, that the dilatation was more suddain and more visible, and that by long and unequall intervals; they having also observed it to subside for a long time; and much longer than swell'd.

Secondly, that the grains in the Cameleons-Skin. were diversly posited, and of a blewish-gray, when the animall was in the shade moveless, and had not been touch: along while, but that the pawes underneath were white-yelowish, and the space between the graines, of a pale and yellowish red: and that the said gray, colouring him all over when at rest, and remaining on the inside of the skin, when flead, (which seem'd to argue, it was the naturall colour) did, when exposed to the day-light, change in the Sun, so that all the places of its body, struck by that light, took, instead of their blewish gray, a browner gray, approaching to a minim; but the rest of the skin, not shone upon by the Sun, changed its gray into divers brig liter colours, which formed Spots half an inch big, of an Isabella-colour, by the mixture mixture of the yellow pale in the graines, and the light brown in the ground of the skin: the other skin, not shone on by the Sun, and remaining of a gray paler. then ordinary; being like cloath mixt of wool of divers colours, the ground continuing Rh