to say what cause it proceeds from. If they did not change wh shut up in a house, but only on taking them into a garden, it mi be supposed the change of the colors was in consequence of smell of the plants; but when in a house, if it is watched, it w [be seen to] change every ten minutes: some moments a pl green, at others all its beautiful colors will come out, and when a passion it becomes of a deep black, and will swell itself up like balloon; and, from being one of the most beautiful animals, it b comes one of the most ugly. It is true they are extremely fond the fresh air; and on taking them to a window where there is not ing to be seen, it is easy to observe the pleasure they certainly tal in it: they begin to gulp down the air, and their color becom brighter. I think it proceeds, in a great degree, from the temp they are in a little thing will put them in a bad humor. If, crossing a takle, for instance, you stop them, and attempt to tu them another road, they will not stir, and are extremely obstinate on opening the mouth at them, it will set then in a passion: the begin to arm themselves, by swelling and turning black, and wi sometimes hiss a little, but not much. The third I brought from Jerusalem, was the most singular of all the chameleons I ever had its temper, if it can be so called, was extremely sagacious and cur ning. This one was not of the order of the green kind, but a dis agrecable drab, and it never once varied in its color in two months On my arrival at Cairo, I used to let it crawl about the room, o the furniture. Sometimes it would get down, if it could, and hid itself away from me, but in a place where it could see me; and sometimes, on my leaving the room and on entering it, would draw itself so thin as to make itself nearly on a level with whatever i might be on, so that I might not see it. It had often deceived m so. One day, having missed it for some time, I concluded it was hid about the room; after looking for it in vain, I thought it had got out of the room and made its escape. In the course of the evening, after the candle was lighted, I went to a basket that had got a handle across it: I saw my chameleon, but its color entirely changed, and different to any I ever had seen before: the whole body, head and tail, a brown, with black spots, and beautiful deep orange colored spots round the black. I certainly was much gratified. On being disturbed, its colors vanished, unlike the others; but after this I used to observe it the first thing in the morning, when it would have the same colors. Their chief food was flies: the fly does not die immediately on being swallowed, for, on taking the chameleon up in my hands, it was easy to feel the fly buzzing, chiefly on account of the air they draw in their inside: they swell much, and particularly when they want to fling themselves off a great height, by filling themselves up like a balloon. On falling, they get no hurt, except on the mouth, which they bruise a little, as that comes first to the ground. Sometimes they will not drink for three or four days, and when they begin, they are about half an hour drinking. I have held a glass in one hand, while the chame

leon rested its two fore paws on the edge of it, the two hind ones resting on my other hand. It stood upright while drinking, holding its head up like a fowl. By flinging its tongue out of its mouth, the length of its body, and instantaneously catching the fly, it would go back like a spring. They will drink mutton broth.

'When in Italy, a gentlenian, a professor of natural history, had two sent him from the coast of Barbary, but they did not live long. He dissected them, and his idea on the change of color is, that he found they had four skins extremely fine, which occasioned the different colors. It may be so, but of this I am positively certain, whatever it may proceed from, they have their different colors peculiar, distinct, and independent of each other, and of themselves.' He adds, in another place, that the chameleons are very inveterate towards their own kind, biting off each others tails and legs, if shut up in the same cage.

THE FROG.

THE frog is in itself a very harmless animal, but to most people, who use it not as an article of food, exceedingly loathsome. Its employment by the Almighty in one of the plagues of Egypt, was characterized by the most striking wisdom. God, with equal ease, says Dr. Adam Clarke, could have brought crocodiles, bears, lions, or tigers, to have punished these people. But, had he used any of these formidable animals, the effect would have appeared so commensurate to the cause, that the hand of God might have been forgotten in the punishment; and the people would have been exasperated, without being humbled. In the present instance, he showed the greatness of his power, by making an animal, devoid of every evil quality, the means of a terrible affliction to his enemies. How easy is it, both to the justice and mercy of God, to destroy or save by means of the most despicable and insignificant of instruments! Though he is the Lord of Hosts, he has no need of powerful armies, the ministry of angels, or the thunderbolts of justice, to punish a sinner, or a sinful nation; the frog or the fly, in his hands, is a sufficient instrument of vengeance.

To the reason here assigned for the choice of so insignificant an animal, we may add another; namely, that as the frog was in Egypt an emblem of Osiris, or the Sun, the first object of idolatrous worship to the nations of the East, its employment on such an occasion was eminently adapted to convince them of the absurdity of their superstitious system.

These vengeful reptiles, says Paxton, were produced in the streams of the Nile, and in the lakes which were supplied from its

waters, because the river was supposed, by that deluded people, to possess an uncommon degree of sanctity, and to deserve their religious veneration; it was the object of their confidence, it was accounted the grand source of their enjoyments, and was the constant theme of their praise; it was, therefore, just to pollute those waters with an innumerable multitude of impure animals, to which the respect and confidence which was due only to the true God, the Father of the rain, had been impiously transferred. Turned at first into blood, as a just punishment of their unfeeling barbarity towards the male children of Israel, they were now a second time polluted and disgraced, to the utter confusion both of their gods and priests.'

The writer from whom we have cited these observations, has treated the entire subject in so admirable a manner, that we shall enrich our pages with some selections.

This loathsome plague extended to every place, and to every class of men. The frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt; they entered into their houses, and into their bed chambers; they crawled upon their persons, upon their beds, and into their kitchen utensils. The whole country-their palaces, their temples, their persons-all was polluted and hateful. Nor was it in their power to wash away the nauseous filth with which they were tainted, for every stream and every lake was full of pollution. To a people who affected a most scrupulous purity in their persons, habitations, and manner of living, nothing, almost, can be conceived more insufferable than this plague. The frog is, compared with many other reptiles, a harmless animal; it neither injures by its bite, nor by its poison, but it must have excited on this occasion, a disgust, which rendered life an insupportable burden. The eye was tortured with beholding the march of their impure legions, and the ear with hearing the harsh tones of their voices. The Egyptians could recline upon no bed where they were not compelled to admit their cold and filthy embrace: they tasted no food which was not infected by their touch; and they smelled no perfume but the fœtid smell of their slime, or the exhalations emitted from their dead carcasses.

How much the Egyptians endured from this visitation, is evident from the haste with which Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and begged the assistance of their prayers: Entreat the Lord that he may take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord.' Reduced to great extremity, and receiving no deliverance from the pretended miracles of his magicians, he had recourse to that God, concerning whom he had so proudly demanded, "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?' Subdued and instructed by adversity, he implores his compassion, and acknowledges the glory of his name; but, as the event proved, not with a sincere heart.

In answer to his entreaties, the frogs were removed. They were

not, however, swept away like the locusts which succeeded them, but destroyed, and left on the face of the ground. They were not annihilated, nor resolved into mud, nor marched back into the river from whence they had come; but left dead upon the ground, to prove the truth of the miracle, that they had not died by the hands of men, but by the power of God; that the great deliverence was not like the works of the magicians, a lying wonder, but a real interposition of Almighty power, and an effect of Divine goodness. The Egyptians were, therefore, reduced to the necessity of collecting them into heaps, which had the effect of more rapidly disengaging the offensive effluvia, and thus, for a time, increasing the wretchedness of the country. Their destruction was probably followed by a pestilence, which cut off many of the people, in addition to those that died in consequence of the grievous vexations they endured from their loathsome adversaries; for, in one of the songs of Zion, it is said, 'He sent frogs, which destroyed them' (Ps. lxxviii. 45); laid waste their lands, and infected themselves with pestilent disorders.

The frog was chosen by the Spirit of inspiration, to represent in vision, the false teachers, and other agents of antichrist: 'I saw,' said John, 'three unclean spirits, like frogs, come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirit of devils, working miracles,' Rev. xvi. 13, 14. These impure and mischievous emissaries are generated and reared in the puddle of moral depravity; like the frog, they disturb the peace, and impair the happiness of all around them. Their unceasing loquacity is not less annoying than the perpetual croaking of the impure animal to which they are compared. Their complaints and reproaches; their accusations and curses; their pride and vanity; and their constant and eager exertions to stir up the subjects, kings, and princes of the earth to mutual slaughter, under the pretence of maintaining the cause of religion,—are still more painful and mischievous than the obstreperous clamors, the mournful complaints and mutual reproaches, the shameless impudence and the vain-glorious inflations, which the frogs are accused of indulging, in their native marshes.

SECTION II.

SERPENTS.

THE primitive meaning of the verb from which the Hebrew name of the serpent class of reptiles is derived, signifies to view, observe attentively, &c., and so remarkable are they for this quality, that ‘a serpent's eye' became a proverb among the Greeks and Romans, who applied it to those who view things sharply or acutely. An ingenious writer, speaking of the supposed fascination in the rattlesnake's eye, says, 'It is perhaps, more universal among the poisonous serpents than is supposed; for our common viper has it.'

The craft and subtilty of the serpent are noticed in scripture, as qualities by which it is distinguisned above every other beast of the field, Genesis iii. 1.; Matthew x. 16. Of its prudence and cunning, many instances might be adduced, as recorded by naturalists; although it is reasonable to suppose, that in common with other parts of the creation, it has materially suffered in these respects from the effects of the curse.

Notwithstanding that the generality of mankind regard this formidable race with horror, there have been some nations who held them in veneration and regard. The adoration of the serpent in ancient Egypt is well known; as is that of the dragon in Babylon. The same species of idolatry still prevails throughout India, and in many parts of Africa it is carried to the most degrading excess.

Calmet has enumerated eleven kinds of serpents, which were known to the Hebrews;-1. APHEн, the viper. 2. CHEPHIR, a sort of aspick, or a lion. 3. AcSHUB, the aspick. 4. PETHEN, the aspick. 5. TZEBOA, a speckled serpent, called Hyana, by the Greeks and Egyptians. 6. TZIMMAON, according to Jerom. 7. TZEPHO, or TZEPHONI, a basilisk; not the fabulous cockatrice, but a serpent like others. 8. KIPPOs, the ancontias or dart. 9. SHEPHIPHON, the cerastes. 10. SHACHAL, the black serpent. 11. SERAPH, a flying serpent.

We shall notice such of these varieties as have been sufficiently identified.

THE VIPER.

THE viper is remarkable for its quick and penetrating poison, and on this account has been made, from the remotest antiquity, an emblem of what is hurtful and destructive. Nay, so terrible was their nature, that they were commonly thought to be sent as execution