234 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



the eagles be gathered together ;"* and in Job it is 

 said, " where the slain is, there is she." Now it is 

 well known that the eagle does not feed on carrion, 

 and it has been proved, by experiment, that it will 

 not touch it unless pressed by hunger. Yet Pro- 

 fessor Paxton contends with St. Jerome that the 

 eagle is certainly meant in the text, and quotes 

 after Bochart, the Arabian historian Damir, who as- 

 serts that the eagle can discover a carcass at the 

 distance of four hundred parasangs, with this singu- 

 larity that if he find part of it have been previously 

 eaten by the osprey, he will not touch the leavings 

 of his inferior. This circumstance, as it appears to 

 us, .makes rather against than for Dr. Paxton's opin- 

 ion, supposing the authority of Damir to be good. 

 In consequence of this apparent discrepance be- 

 tween facts and the text, St. Chrysostom proposed 

 to read "vultures" for "eagles," in the passages 

 both in Matthew and Job. Aldrovand, we think, 

 has given the only judicious solution of the diffi- 

 culty by referring to a very common oriental spe- 

 cies (Gypaetus barbatus, STORR), which was remark- 

 ed by Aristotle to be similar in form to the eagle, 

 but had more the habits of the vulture. 



Besides the nictitating membrane in the eye of 

 birds already described, which is not altogether pe- 

 culiar to them, there is another singular part of 

 the organ whose use has not hitherto been clearly 

 ascertained. It is called by the French Academi- 

 cians the purse (marsupium), and the comb (pecten 

 plicatum). It arises in the back of the eye, and 

 proceeding, apparently, through a slit in the retina, 

 it passes obliquely into the vitreous humour, where 

 it terminates, reaching in some species to the cap- 

 sule of the lens. Numerous bloodvessels run in 

 the folds of the membranes which compose it, and 

 the black pigment by which it is covered suggests 



* Matt, xxiv., 28, and Luke xvii., 37, 



