Salipenter

A species of the polecat, and another of the fox, are destructive to the Indian's poultry; while the opossum, the guana, and salempenta, afford him a delicious morsel.

The Salempenta or El Mateo, measuring from the tail to the nose three feet, is exceedingly ugly; colour chiefly a brownish green, with yellow spots; and marked in the most extraordinary hieroglyphical manner; [...] The Salempenta has (like the Chameleon, and several others of the same species) in some measure the faculty of changing its colour when in any way excited, either through fright or anger; [...]

A large land-lizard, called the Salempenta, or Salipanta, is likewise common, and is said to destroy fowls.

Salempenta (Teius Teguexin).—This fine lizard is sometimes called the Safeguard, because it is supposed to give notice of the approach of the alligator, just as the African monitors are believed to warn travellers against the crocodile. [...] Like the iguana, the Salempenta affords very delicate food, which is thought to resemble the flesh of a very delicate young chicken. New comers are at first averse to eating a lizard of any description, but they very soon find out their mistake, and would even prefer an iguana or Salempenta cutlet to a chicken.

How far foxes, ocelots, hawks, yellow-tail and other snakes, and salempentas, contribute towards keeping down rats by destroying them for food is not easily determined. That the last named is an excellent ratter, I know from actual observation.

I know very little about the details of the regular diet of salempentas, but fowls' and lizards' eggs and chickens are favorites. My nephew wounded a plover and as it was only slightly hurt, he tethered it with a string under the house. In a short time he found a large salempenta on the end of the string, having swallowed the bird.

Lizards usually have white flesh, tasting more like fowl than anything else. The Salempenta lizard of Guiana, which is amphibious and unpleasant to behold, is a favourite dish of the Indians.

I could sting you for a bounty of reparations, but keep your money and let me talk like dis and dat, let me say I come from the tribe of Bongo-Bongo; that I am germane and first-cousin to jungle beasts like anthropophagi, hermaphrodites, salipenters and all the other creatures dreamt of by your writers or discovered by your travellers.