Leo Africanus on the Chameleon
A note to Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Book III, chapter 21

From A Geographical Historie of Africa, by Iohn Leo a More; in the 1600 translation of John Pory, Book IX (p. 347):

Of the Camelion.

The camelion being of the shape and bignes of a lizzard, is a deformed, crooked, and leane creature, having a long and slender tayle like a mouse, and being of a slowe pace. It is nourished by the element of ayer, and the sun-beames, at the rising wherof it gapeth, and turneth it selfe up and downe. It changeth the colour according to the varietie of places where it commeth, being sometimes black and sometimes greene, as I my selfe have seen it. It is at great enmity with venemous serpents, for when it seeth any sleeping under a tree, it presently climeth up the same tree, and looking downe upon the serpents head, it voideth out of the mouth as it were, a long threede of spittle, with a round drop like a perle hanging at the end, which drop falling wrong, the camelion changeth his place, till it may light directly upon the serpents head, by the vertue wherof he presently dyeth. Our African writers have reported many things concerning the properties and secret qualities of this beast, which at this present I do not wel remember.


This page is maintained by James Eason.