Translation of the word Koach—Signification of the word, and its applicability to the Chameleon—Power of the reptile's grasp—The prehensile tail—Demeanour of the Chameleon on the ground—The independent eyes—Its frequent change of color—Mode of taking prey—Strange notions respecting the Chameleon—The Monitor, or Land Crocodile—Its habits and use to mankind—The Nilotic Monitor, and its habit of destroying the eggs and young of the Crocodile—The Gecko or Ferret of Scripture.
IN Levit. 11:30 there occurs a word which has caused great trouble to commentators. The word is koach (pronounced as a dissyllable thus, ko-ach). Primarily, it signifies power and strength, but in this passage it signifies the name of some creature which is included in the list of unclean beasts. There is very little doubt that it signifies some species of lizard, and in the Authorized Version it is rendered as CHAMELEON. The Jewish Bible accepts the same translation, but appends to it the mark of doubt.
There are two lizards to which the term may possibly be applied—namely, the Chameleon and the Monitor; and, as the Authorized Version of the Scriptures accepts the former interpretation, we will first describe the Chameleon.
THIS reptile is very plentiful in the Holy Land, as well as in Egypt, so that the Israelites would be perfectly familiar with it, both during their captivity and after their escape. It is but a small reptile, and the reader may well ask why a name denoting strength 'should be given to it. I think that we may find the reason for its name in the extraordinary power of its grasp, as it is able, by means of its peculiarly-formed feet and prehensile tail, to grasp the branches so tightly that it can scarcely be removed without damage.
I once saw six or seven Chameleons huddled up together, all having clasped each other's legs and tails so firmly that they formed a bundle that might be rolled along the ground without being broken up. In order to show the extraordinary power of the Chameleon's grasp, I have had a figure drawn from a sketch taken by myself from a specimen which I kept for several months.
When the Chameleon wished to pass from one branch to another, it used to hold firmly to the branch by the tail and one hind-foot, and stretch out its body nearly horizontally, feeling about with the other three feet, as if in search of a convenient resting-place. In this curious attitude it would remain for a considerable time, apparently suffering no inconvenience, though oven the spider-monkey would have been unable to maintain such an attitude for half the length of time.
The strength of the grasp is really astonishing when contrasted with the size of the reptile, as any one will find who allows the Chameleon to grasp his finger, or who tries to detach it from the branch to which it is clinging. The feet are most curiously made. They are furnished with five toes, which are arranged like those of parrots and other climbing birds, so as to close upon each other like the thumb and finger of a human hand. They are armed with little yellow claws, slightly curved and very sharp, and when they grasp the skin of the hand they give it an unpleasantly sharp pinch.
The tail is as prehensile as that of the spider-monkey, to which the Chameleon bears a curious resemblance in some of its attitudes, though nothing can be more different than the volatile, inquisitive, restless disposition of the spider-monkey and the staid, sober demeanor of the Chameleon. The reptile has the power of guiding the tail to any object as correctly as if there were an eye at the end of the tail. When it has been traveling over the branches of trees, I have often seen it direct its tail to a projecting bud, and grasp it as firmly as if the bud had been before and not behind it.
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 color of the Chameleon has been long known, though there are many mistaken ideas concerning it.
The reptile does not necessarily assume the color of any object on which it is placed, but sometimes takes a totally different color. Thus; if my Chameleon happened to come upon any scarlet substance, the color 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 color 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 color was undoubtedly black, with a slight tinge of gray. 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 spots and streaks of the same color would appear on the head and body.
When it was excited either by anger or by expectation—as, for example, when it heard a largo fly buzzing near it—the colors were singularly beautiful, almost exactly resembling in hue and arrangement those of the jaguar. Of all the colors, green seemed generally to predominate, but the creature would pass so rapidly from one color to another that it was scarcely possible to follow the various gradations of hue.
Some persons have imagined that the variation of color depends on the wants and passions of the animal. This is not the case. The change is often caused by mental emotion, but is not dependent on it; and I believe that the animal has no control whatever over its color. The best proof of this assertion may be found in the fact that my own Chameleon changed color several times after its death; and, indeed, as long as I had the dead body before me, changes of hue were taking place.
The food of the Chameleon consists of insects, mostly flies, which it catches by means of its tongue, which can be protruded to an astonishing distance. The tongue is nearly cylindrical, and is furnished at the tip with a slight cavity, which is filled with a very glutinous secretion. When the Chameleon seer a fiy or other insect, it gently protrudes the tongue once or twice, as if taking aim, like a billiard-player with his cue, and then, with a moderately smart stroke, carries off the insect on the glutinous tip of the tongue. The force with which the Chameleon strikes is really wonderful. My own specimen used to look for flies from my hand, and at first I was as much surprised with the force of the blow struck by the tongue as I was with the grasping power of the feet.
Among the wild legends with which the earlier naturalists adorned their accounts of all animals with which they were not personally familiar, those of the Chameleon are not the least curious. “Themselves, "writes Topsel, an author of the sixteenth century," are very gentle, never exasperated but when they are about wild fig-trees.
“They have for their enemies the serpent, the crow, and the hawk. When the hungry serpent doth assault them, they defend themselves in this manner, as Alexander Mindius writeth. They take in their mouths a broad and strong stalk, under protection of which, as under a buckler, they defend themselves against their enemy the serpent, by reason that the stalk is broader than the serpent can gripe in his mouth, and the other parts of the chameleon so firm and hard as the serpent cannot hurt them: he laboureth but in vain to get a prey, so long as the stalk is in the chameleon’s mouth.
“But if the chameleon at any time see a serpent taking the air, and sunning himself under some green tree, he climbeth up into that tree, and setteth himself directly over the serpent; then out of his mouth he casteth a thread, like a spider, at the end of which hangeth a drop of poison as bright as any pearl; by this string he letteth down the poison upon the serpent, which, lighting upon it, killeth it immediately.
“And Scaliger reporteth a greater wonder than this in the description of the chameleon; for he saith, if the boughs of the tree so grow as the perpendicular line cannot fall directly upon the serpent, then he so correcteth and guideth it with his fore-feet that it falleth upon the serpent within the mark of a hair's breadth.
“The raven and the crow are also at variance with the chameleon, and so great is the adverse nature betwixt these twain, that if the crow eat of the chameleon being slain by him, he dieth for it except he recover his life by a bay-leaf, even as the elephant, after he hath devoured a chameleon, saveth his life by eating of the wilde olive-tree.
“But the greatest wonder of all is the hostility which Pliny reporteth to be betwixt the chameleon and the hawk. For he writeth that when a hawk flyeth over a chameleon, she hath no power to resist the chameleon, but falleth down before it, yielding both her life and her limbs to be devoured by it, and thus that devourer that liveth upon the prey and blood of others hath no power to save her own life from this little beast.”
It may here be remarked that the frog was said to save itself from the water-ducks by seizing a stick crosswise in its mouth, so that when the duck carne to seize its prey, the stick carne across the angles of the jaws, and prevented the frog from being swallowed.
So much for the Chameleon. We will now take the NILOTIC MONITOR (Hydrosaurus niloticus) and the LAND MONITOR (Psammosaurus scincus), the other reptiles which have been conjectured to be the real representatives of the Koach.
These lizards attain to some size, the former sometimes measuring six feet in length, and the latter but a foot or so less. Of the two, the Land Monitor, being the more common, both in Palestine and Egypt, has perhaps the best claim to be considered as the Koach of Scripture. It is sometimes called the Land Crocodile. It is a carnivorous animal, feeding upon other reptiles and the smaller mammalia, and is very fond of the eggs of the crocodile, which it destroys in great numbers, and is in consequence much venerated by the inhabitants of the country about the Nile.
The theory that this reptile may be the Koach of Leviticus is strengthened by the fact that even at the present day it is cooked and eaten by the natives, whereas the chameleon is so small and bony that scarcely any one would take the trouble of cooking it.
The Nilotic Monitor shares the same habit of devouring crocodiles' eggs, and consequently shares the respect of those who are endangered by the crocodile. It even eats the young crocodiles after they are hatched, chasing them through the water, and capturing them by means of its superior swiftness. It may be distinguished from the Land Monitor by the elevated keel which runs along the whole of the spine from the neck to the very end of the long tail. The general color of the Nilotic Monitor is olive-gray, mottled with black. On the back of the neck are a series of curved bands of a whitish yellow.
It is mentioned on page 69, that the word anâkah, which is translated as “ferret” in Levit. 11:30, is certainly a lizard, and in all probability is one of the Geckos. I have therefore introduced into the same illustration on page 535 the commonest species of Gecko found in Palestine. The reader will observe the flat, fanlike expansions at the ends of the toes, by which it is able to adhere to flat surfaces.