But the most curious of all tree-lizards is the Chamæleon, with his soft warty skin, his round skin-encircled eyes, his bird-like feet, and his clinging tail. He never hurries himself, but putting forward a leg, at the end of which is a foot whose claws are divided into two bundles, he very deliberately grasps the branch, as a parrot does, loosens his tail, draws himself forward, and then fastens on again with tail and claws; while his eyes, each peering out of a thick covering skin, roll round quite independently of each other, one looking steadily to the right, while the other may be making a journey to the left. What is he looking for? Just ahead of him on a twig sits a fly, but he cannot reach him yet. So once more a leg comes out, and his body is drawn gradually forwards. Snap! In a moment his mouth has opened, his tube-like tongue, with clubbed and sticky tip, has darted out and struck the fly, and carried it down his throat, while the chamæleon looks as if he had never moved. It is not difficult to imagine that such a slow-moving animal, whose natural colour is a brownish green like the leaves among which he moves, would often escape unseen from his enemies. And when light falls upon him, his tint changes by the movement of the colour-cells in his skin, which seem to vary according to the colour of the objects around, whenever he is awake and can see them. So by the waterside, on the land, and among the trees, the lizard tribe still flourish in spite of higher animals; and just as we found some legless kinds among the _amphibia_ burrowing in the ground, so here, too, we find legless lizards, some with small scaly spikes in the place of hind legs, others, like the glass-snake of America[82] and our English slowworm[83] (or blindworm), which have no trace of feet outside the skin, but glide along under grass and leaves, eating slugs and other small creatures, though they are true lizards with shoulder bones and breastbones under the skin. * * * * *