ABOUT LOBSTERS 17 



The Senses 



Sight. The eye of a lobster is a compound eye, as is 

 that of the common house fly, and consists of perhaps 10,000 

 facets or little eyes. Sight is the lobster's poorest sense, and 

 is probably almost nil in bright light. In fact, the greater 

 part of its life is spent at depths where clear vision is im- 

 possible from lack of light, which indicates that sight ought 

 to play but a small part in its daily life. 



It has been suggested that some of the multiple * * 

 eyes might be tremendously sensitive to light on a scale 

 beyond our human comprehension. This is similar to 

 the phenomenal acuteness of a hawk's eye, which is 

 said to be able to sight a rabbit when the hawk is a mile 

 high in the sky. If this were so, a lobster might be able 

 to see much more clearly in the dimness of the ocean 

 than was believed possible. The idea of different eyes 

 having different sensitivity to light suggests that one set 

 of eyes could function in daylight, as they do, for a lob- 



