DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0167
AND LOWER EGYPT. 139
cut out in the rock on the coast, and which Euro-
peans have decorated, improperly enough, with
the name of Cleopatra's baths} seem to be a con-
tinuation of them.
At the entrance of the catacombs I have seen
several camekons*. It is now well known, that
the changing of their colours is not to be ascribed
to the objects presented to them ; that their dif-
ferent affections increase or diminish the intensity
of the tints, with which the very delicate skin
which covers them is, as it were, marbled : that
they are not satisfied with nourishment so unsub-
stantial as air ; that they require more solid ali-
ment, and swallow flies and other insects; and that,
finally, the marvellous stories which have been told
respecting this species of lizard, are merely a tissue
of fictions, which have disgraced the science of na-
ture down to this day. I have preserved some came-
leons, not that I was tempted to repeat the experi-.
ment of Cornelius Le Bruyn, who after having
gravely assured us, that the cameleons which he
kept in his apartment, at Smyrna, lived on air, adds,
that they died one after another, in a very short
space of time-f~; but I wished to satisfy myself to
what a point they could subsist without food. I
* Cameleon. Lacepede, Natural History of oviparous Qua-
drupeds.—Lacerta chameleon. L'n.
f Voyage to the Levant, vo'. i.p. 515.
bad
cut out in the rock on the coast, and which Euro-
peans have decorated, improperly enough, with
the name of Cleopatra's baths} seem to be a con-
tinuation of them.
At the entrance of the catacombs I have seen
several camekons*. It is now well known, that
the changing of their colours is not to be ascribed
to the objects presented to them ; that their dif-
ferent affections increase or diminish the intensity
of the tints, with which the very delicate skin
which covers them is, as it were, marbled : that
they are not satisfied with nourishment so unsub-
stantial as air ; that they require more solid ali-
ment, and swallow flies and other insects; and that,
finally, the marvellous stories which have been told
respecting this species of lizard, are merely a tissue
of fictions, which have disgraced the science of na-
ture down to this day. I have preserved some came-
leons, not that I was tempted to repeat the experi-.
ment of Cornelius Le Bruyn, who after having
gravely assured us, that the cameleons which he
kept in his apartment, at Smyrna, lived on air, adds,
that they died one after another, in a very short
space of time-f~; but I wished to satisfy myself to
what a point they could subsist without food. I
* Cameleon. Lacepede, Natural History of oviparous Qua-
drupeds.—Lacerta chameleon. L'n.
f Voyage to the Levant, vo'. i.p. 515.
bad