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 ;"J 



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 (Haliaetus leucocephalus, SA- 

 VIGNY), 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 haliaetus, SAVIGNY), he says, " down rapid 



* Ornithology, by Ray, p. 58. f Ibid., p. 57. 



t Iliad, xvii. 



