322 THE SENSES, 



instance. These anatomical words are used for their brevity. 

 Let the family doctor explain them. 



I pass on to consider the question whether light can he 

 developed from animal bodies ab interne, and be emitted. 

 By pressure on our eyeballs we can produce the impression 

 of luminous rings ; and gentlemen who do the pugilistic re- 

 cords for sporting papers have often testified that so-and-so 

 knocked fire out of somebody's eyes. Then, again, we have 

 seen cats glare at us in the dark : phenomena all in accord- 

 ance with the belief, old as Plato, that animals really have 

 the power of generating and emitting light. According to 

 that philosopher, the gods had given to the eyes just the 

 needful amount of fire to make objects visible, but not enough 

 to burn them up, or make them dangerous to objects their 

 glances rested upon ; which proves the inferiority of Greek 

 to British young ladies. In the records of ancient and me- 

 diaeval fable, however, one exception was recognised the 

 basilisk to wit, of whom more anon. In Miiller's Archives 

 a medico-legal case is mentioned in which a person was said 

 to have recognised a robber by light struck from his own 

 eyes ; a statement to which the learned editor demurred. 



Touching the eye-glare of cats and other predacious 

 animals, it is enough to state that it can never be seen in 

 complete darkness; moreover, as Prevost demonstrated, the 

 eyes of a dead cat, even when cut out of the head, can glare 

 as well as living ones. The conclusion, then, is obvious. 

 Concerning the basilisk, of which I stand pledged to give 

 account, the testimony was this : to wit, that, somewhere or 

 other, there was some creature or another whether dragon 

 or serpent, not clearly made out whose eye-glare was so 

 deadly, that no other eye could meet his and live : no other 

 eye save one, and that the weasel's. The basilisk destroyed 

 every tree, plant, flower, or herb he came near save one, 

 the rue. The weasel, cognisant of this, would gorge himself 

 with rue, then go forth and hunt out and fight and kill 



