THE EYE 5^ 



ing the drum of the ear. It should not therefore be cut out, as 



is sometimes customary. - 



The sound, collected by the outer ear, is conveyed through the 

 external auditory passage to the Qiiembrana tympani — the mem- 

 brane of the drum, stretching across and closing the external 

 passage. Between this and another membrane still deeper in 

 the ear, are four little bones, highly elastic, and covered with a 

 highly elastic cartilage, by means of which the vibrations of 

 Bound are conveyed more perfectly than they would be through 

 the mere air of the cavity. 



It is conveyed to a strangely irregular cavity, filled with an 

 aqueous fluid, and the substance or pulp of the portio mollis or 

 soft portion of the seventh pair of nerves, the cmditory nerve, 

 expands on the membrane that lines the walls of this cavity. 



Sound is propagated far more intensely through water than 

 through air ; and therefore it is that an aqueous fluid occupies 

 those chambers of the ear on the walls of which the auditory 

 nerve is expanded. 



The Eye — The Eye is a most important organ, and comes 

 next under consideration, as enclosed in the bones of the skull. 

 The eye of the horse should be large, somewhat but not too 

 prominent, and the eyelid fine and thin. If the eye is sunlt in 

 the head, and apparently little — for there is actually a ver)^ tri- 

 fling difference in the size of the eye in animals of the same spe- 

 cies and bulk, and that seeming difference arises from the larger 

 or smaller opening between the lids — and the lid is thick, and 

 especially if there is any puckering towards the inner corner of 

 the hds, that eye either is diseased, or has lately been subject tc 

 inflammation ; and, particularly, if one eye is smaller than the 

 other, it has, at no great distance of time, been inflamed. 



The eye of the horse enables us with tolerable accuracy to 

 guess at his temper. If much of the white is s'-en, the buyer 

 should pause ere he completes his bargain ; for horses exhibiting 

 this characteristic are usually found vicious-tempered. 



The eyes are placed at the side of the head, but the direction 

 of the conoid cavity which they occupy, and of the sheath by 

 which they are surrounded within the orbit, gives them a pre- 

 vailing direction forwards, so that the animal has a veiy extended 

 field of vision. 



The eye-ball is placed in the anterior and most capacious part 

 of the orbit, nearer to the frontal than the temporal side, with a 

 degree of prominence varying with diflerent individuals, and the 

 will of the animal. It is protected by a bony socket beneath and 

 on the inside, but is partially exposed on the roof and on the out- 

 side. It is, however, covered and secured by thick and powerfu' 

 muscles — ^by a mass of adipose matter which is distributed to va 



