general, the unexpected apparition
of this one in particular utterly confounded me. When I had a little
recovered from the fascination of its glance, I started up; the cat fled,
and emboldened by this, I rushed out of the house in pursuit; but it had
disappeared. It was the only time I ever saw one in the valley, and how it
got there I cannot imagine. It is just possible that it might have escaped
from one of the ships at Nukuheva. It was in vain to seek information on
the subject from the natives, since none of them had seen the animal, the
appearance of which remains a mystery to me to this day.

Among the few animals which are to be met with in Typee, there was none
which I looked upon with more interest than a beautiful golden-hued
species of lizard. It measured perhaps five inches from head to tail, and
was most gracefully proportioned. Numbers of those creatures were to be
seen basking in the sunshine upon the thatching of the houses, and
multitudes at all hours of the day showed their glittering sides as they
ran frolicking between the spears of grass, or raced in troops up and down
the tall shafts of the cocoa-nut trees. But the remarkable beauty of these
little animals and their lively ways were not their only claims upon my
admiration. They were perfectly tame and insensible to fear. Frequently,
after seating myself upon the ground in some shady place during the heat
of the day, I would be completely overrun with them. If I brushed one off
my arm, it would leap perhaps into my hair: when I tried to frighten it
away by gently pinching its leg, it would turn for protection to the very
hand that attacked it.

The birds are also remarkably tame. If you happened to see one perched
upon a branch within reach of your arm, and advanced towards it, it did
not fly away immediately, but waited quietly looking at you, until you
could almost touch it, and then took wing slowly, less alarmed at your
presence, it would seem, than desirous of removing itself from your path.
Had salt been less scarce in the valley than it was, this was the very
place to have gone birding with it.

I remember that once, on an uninhabited island of the Gallipagos, a bird
alighted on my outstretched arm, while its mate chirped from an adjoining
tree. Its tameness, far from shocking me, as a similar occurrence did
Selkirk, imparted to me the most exquisite thrill of delight I ever
experienced; and with somewhat of the same pleasure did I afterwa