“What do you say? have I not eyes to see that your Grand Duke {374} and Duchess are simply Owl and Owlet, on whom those airs sit badly?” [Illustration: A NOCTURNAL DUET.] “Hush!” whispered the Bat, who was rather talkative. “Speak lower. Were it known that I listened to you, I would be drawn away and perhaps eaten. Since leaving the place of their humble birth they only dream of grandeur, and hope one day to become real aristocrats {375} in the midst of these old tokens of nobility. Bah! the cowl does not make the monk, any more than the castle does the prince. Fly over there, my old friend, to the right, and you will find a better shelter in the ruins of the castle.” “Show me them; lead me to the souvenirs of departed greatness, out of sight of this sickly, spurious, howling waste of plaster and paint, sham, and shoddy. Thank you, my dear, your mistress was only natural when she was rude.” Very little remained of the old castle, yet I would have given fifty restored ones for a single wall of the old pile. Is there anything more touching in the world than ruins which bear witness, so eloquently, to the greatness of the past? How can we hesitate between old and new? The great present is but the mimicry of the greater past. AN OLD FALCON. This venerable wall enclosed a court as old as itself, and decked on one side with the green shoots of a vine. Lilies and wild tulips were growing between the stones of a dilapidated flight of steps partly covered with ivy. Sweet-scented wall-flowers and a variety of weeds were disputing the spaces with mosses, lichens, grass, briars, and nettles. Parsley, tufts of samphire and poppies, found a home among the debris, the bright flowers rivalling flames of consuming fire. When the art of man has ceased to usurp the soil, nature slowly but surely demolishes his handiwork, and recovers her domain. The court belonged to an old Falcon who was ruined by the revolutions. He was a most hospitable bird, who spent all his income in entertaining, thus the court was the resort of creatures of every fur and feather; resourceless Rats, Shrew-Mice, Mining-Moles, Crickets, and other musicians, some of whom had even taken up their permanent abode within its walls. Alas, the chivalry and hospitality of the noble Falcon have vanished, and the old genuine sport in which he used to delight is mimicked by a troop of modern sportsmen whom the birds despise. They blaze away pompously with pellets and powder, secretly filling their bags at the nearest market-place. {376} During my stay at this ruin I had occasion to study the habits of a Chameleon, whose character interested me greatly. I therefore hasten to publish my observations on this peculiar type of reptile. [Illustration] {377} WHAT ANIMATES THE HEART OF A CHAMELEON. I.