CHAMELEON . The chameleon ( ChamÅ“leonvulgaris ) is a very common Palestine lizard. It may be found on hot days clinging with its bird-like feet and prehensile tail to the trees, or passing with slow and deliberate walk over the ground. It is remarkable for its marvellous protective gift of changing the colour of its skin to resemble its surroundings, and for its eyes which, moving Independently, one looking backwards while the other looks to the front, give it an unusual range of vision. Even to-day it is supposed by the ignorant, as in olden times, to live upon air. In reality it lives on small insects, catching them by means of its long sticky tongue, which it can protrude and withdraw with extraordinary quickness. Two words in Leviticus 11:30 are rendered ‘chameleon’ in the Eng. versions. In the A V kôach is so translated, but in the RV [Note: Revised Version.] we have ‘l and crocodile ’ (see Lizard); while in the RV [Note: Revised Version.] tinshemeth ‘mole’ in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] is tr. [Note: translate or translation.] ‘chameleon.’ Both renderings are very uncertain. See Mole.
E. W. G. Masterman.