VISION. 225 
fords the same use to them that the eyelids do to 
man. Besides which nature hath superadded two 
other eyelids, and of these the lower so large that 
they alone suffice to cover and preserve the eye.”* 
Willoughby thinks it “ partly false or uncertain,” 
that the golden eagle ‘‘ doth so excel in quick-sight- 
edness, soaring so high in the air that she can very 
hardly be discerned by us in all that light, yet she 
can espy a hare lying under a bush, or a little fish 
swimming in the water; though I grant,” he adds, 
“that both the eagle and other rapacious birds are 
very sharp-sighted, yet do I not think that their 
eyes can reach the object at such distances.”’} 
We may remark, however, with all deference to 
the high authority of Willoughby, that his skepticism 
is here carried too far, as the accounts he objects 
to are supported by undoubted facts. For, though 
we should reject the authority of Homer, who, as 
Pope renders it, says, 
**Endued with sharpest eye, 
The sacred eagle, from his walks above, 
Looks down and sees the distant thicket move, 
Then stoops, and sousing on the quivering hare, 
Snatches his life ;”t 
and though we should doubt the testimony of Au- 
relius Augustine, who says that “the eagle, when 
so high in the air as to be invisible to us, can per- 
ceive a hare lurking in an orchard, or a small fish 
swimming in the water;” yet we cannot refuse to 
admit as unquestionable facts the observations of 
such men as Wilson and Vaillant. Speaking of 
the white-headed eagle (Haliaétus leucocephalus, Sa- 
vieny), Wilson says, “‘ from the ethereal heights to 
which he soars, looking abroad, at one glance, on 
an immeasurable expanse of forests, fields, lakes, 
and ocean, deep below him;” and of the osprey 
(Pandion haliaétus, Savieny), he says, “down rapid 
* Ornithology, by Ray, p. 58. + Ibid., p. 57. 
y tay, p 
t Iliad, xvii. 
