CHAPTER XIV 

 THE EYES OF BIRDS 



A chapter on the anatomy of the eyes of birds at once suggests the name of 

 CASEY ALBERT WOOD (1856-1942) (Fig. 482). Born of American parents in 

 Canada, he graduated in medicine in Montreal in 1877, becoming one of the 

 clinical clerks of the great physician. Osier, at ^McGill. After practising for some 

 time in Montreal, he continued his studies in England and Europe, and in 1890 

 settled in Chicago where he occupied the Chair of Ophthalmology initially at 

 the Northwestern University and eventually at the University of Illinois. He was 

 successively president of the American Academy of Medicine and the American 

 Academy of Ophthalmology, and a founder member of the Ainerican College 

 of Surgeons. A man of extraordinarily wide interests and more than usual 

 erudition, he is particularly remembered for his prolific writings, the most 

 impressive of which is his editorship of the American Encyclopedia and Dictionary 

 of Ophthcdmology of 18 volumes, to which he contributed largely. He was also 

 editor-in-chief of the Anncds of Ophtlialmology (1894-1901), the Ophthcdmic 

 Record (1902-8) and the American Journal of Ophthalmology (1908-14). His 

 knowledge of the history of ophthalmology was most extensive, a subject on 

 which he wrote an interesting manvial ; he also made scholarly translations of 

 ancient works, studying for this purj^ose in the Vatican Library at Rome, and 

 wrote a delightful book on his researches. The comparative anatomy of the eye 

 interested him greatly, and within this sphere his ])assion for ornithology 

 earned for him a world-wide reputation ; in its pursuit he travelled widely to 

 countries as far apart as British Guiana and the Far East to study the eyes of 

 rare birds. These observations were collected in his classical book. The Fundus 

 Oculi of Birds (Chicago, 1917), while his extraordinary erudition and pains- 

 taking thoroughness in literary research is nowhere better illustrated than in 

 his elaborate and exhaustive Introduction to the Literature of Vertebrate Zoology 

 (Oxon., 1931). A true scholar with an unusual and contagious enthusiasm, he 

 was also one of the inost delightful and gracious of men. 



BIRDS, descendants of primitiv-e Reptiles probably through the Dinosaiu's,^ 

 are essentially adapted for the air for which purpose their forelegs are modified 

 as wings. The extant species are divided into two main classes : 



(a) PAL.^coGNATH.E (or eatit^e), a relatively sinall class of running birds 

 with degenerate wings and a flat breast -bone (the ostriches in Africa [Struthio) 

 and America {Rhea), the emu {Dromoeus) and the cassowaries (Casuarius) in 

 Australia, the tinamous of Central and South America and the kiwi {Apteryx) 

 in New Zealand, Fig. 484) ; 



(b) neogxath.^ (or carixat.e), flying birds with well-developed wings and 

 a keeled breast -bone, comprising the vast majority of birds of over 11,000 living 

 species (Figs. 483, 485). The penguins (Impennes), however, have taken to the 

 water and do not flv at all ; thev have hair-like feathers, a whale-like blubber 



Emu 



1 p. 234. 



Tinainou 



