THE 



FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



VISION OF BIRDS. 



THE animals most celebrated for piercing sight 

 are the eagle and the lynx ; but if the acute vision 

 of the eagle rested on no better authority than that 

 of the lynx, we should not be disposed to rely on 

 its accuracy, though old Aldrovand says that " no- 

 body of sound mind will deny the lynx to be the 

 clearest sighted of all quadrupeds, since all natural- 

 ists are agreed upon the point." There can be lit- 

 tle doubt, however, that the agreement thus quoted 

 as an authority sprung from reading and copying 

 rather than from observation ; or, perhaps, as Ges- 

 ner seems to think, from the similarity of the name 

 to Lynceus, whom the poets fable to have been 

 able to look through trees, walls, and rocks, and 

 even, if we credit Apollonius, to see into the very 

 bowels of the earth. Observation proves that the 

 sight of the lynx (Felis cervaria, TEMMINCK, and F. 

 Lynx, LINN.) is similar, and little, if at all, superior 

 to that of the cat or the tiger ; and, as it pursues 

 its prey in the night, its eyes, though in appearance 

 " brilliant," as Buffon correctly says, are ill fitted 

 for vision except during twilight. 



The proverbial piercing sight of the eagle rests 

 upon very different evidence from that of these fa- 

 T2 



