Sometimes, when it rests on a branch, it allows the tail to hang down as a sort of balance, the tip coiling and uncoiling unceasingly. But, as soon as the reptile wishes to move, the tail is tightened to the branch, and at once coiled round it. There really seems to be almost a separate vitality and consciousness on the part of the tail, which glides round an object as if it were acting with entire independence of its owner. On the ground the Chameleon fares but poorly. Its walk is absolutely ludicrous, and an experienced person might easily fail to identify a Chameleon when walking with the same animal on a branch. It certainly scrambles along at a tolerable rate, but it is absurdly awkward, its legs sprawling widely on either side, and its feet grasping futilely at every step. The tail, which is usually so lithe and nimble, is then held stiffly from the body, with a slight curve upwards. The eyes are strange objects, projecting far from the head, and each acting quite independently of the other, so that one eye may often be directed forwards, and the other backwards. 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 spats 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.