blaze with
scarlet."

"Yes, and look at the birds," was the reply. "I wish my father were
here, with his mind at rest, to enjoy all this as I do, or should if he
were with us. There, quick! What's that--running in there among the
leaves on that tree?"

"Snake," cried Rodd, who just caught sight of the movement. "No. Who
ever saw a snake with four legs? Why, it's a great lizard of a thing!
Why, uncle, that must be one of those queer chaps that turn all sorts of
colours."

"Yes," said the doctor, "you are right, Pickle," and he focussed upon it
a little old-fashioned single opera-glass which he carried in his
pocket. "That's a chameleon, sure enough; and a big one too, I should
say, though it's the first one I ever saw alive."

"What's he after?" said Rodd.

"Having a game, catching butterflies, I think, sir," suggested Joe
Cross. "So he is, Joe."

"Why, Master Rodd, it makes us chaps wish we was boys again and ashore
there running after them butterflies with our caps; only one couldn't
run among the trees, and they fly too high. I never see flutterbies, as
we used to call them, with colours like these, though. We used to catch
white 'uns, and yaller ones, and sometimes what we used to call
tortoiseshells. But I call all this 'ere--Look there, sir; there's one
as big as my hand--two--lots on 'em! Yes, I do call this 'ere dead
waste both of the butterflies and the birds."

"Why, my man?" said the doctor quietly.

"Why, sir, everything you see flying about in the air is as lovely as
lovely, and no one to look at them. Why, if I had my way I'd have all
these sort of things flying about in old England. Yes, sir, they are
all wasted here."

"That they aren't, Joe," cried Rodd. "We are looking at them, and
enjoying them; and I say, uncle, isn't it time we began to get some
specimens?"

"Plenty of time yet, my boy. Why, captain, the country here on either
side is very beautiful."

"Satisfied, then?" said the Spaniard coolly.

"Thoroughly," replied the doctor, "and very glad to have met with such a
guide."

"But I say, captain," cried Rodd, "don't forget the big monkeys and the
leopards."

"Oh no," said the Spaniard. "Farther on yet; and I can't be sure.
There are plenty in the woods one day, and the next they are gone. But
we shall come across some of them." And he sank back smoking again.

"Just look at him," said Rodd. "He doesn't seem to take notice of
anything."

"These things have