THROUGH THE YEAR 155 



as any one in England. I cannot accept all his 

 theories, but his bird talk has a singular charm. 

 As to the gem-like eyes in the divers, he insists they 

 are an angler's lures. The glittering red eye of the 

 great northern red-throated and black-throated 

 divers holds the small fish as the glittering eye of 

 Coleridge's Ancient Mariner held the wedding guest 

 and the small fish comes to its doom ! 



I am not persuaded by this theory of gem-like 

 eyes ; I should want to satisfy myself by seeing 

 the small fish draw near to the diver's eye in a tank 

 or large basin of water ere I believed ; still it is a 

 theory that may set us thinking as to the meaning 

 of this feature in birds. Among our small perching 

 birds the iris is not gem-like or high-coloured. No 

 doubt, viewed through a microscope, the eyes of 

 small birds would prove very wondrous and exquis- 

 ite organs, but, viewed with the naked eye, they are 

 not as a rule very striking. True, they are, in 

 some birds, very bright and even eloquent. " Their 

 bright, bright eyes," says Coleridge in his lines on 

 the nightingale. Its eye is a very bright, a speaking 

 eye, but it is not remarkable for high colour or glitter. 



Expression there indeed is in some of these small 

 bird's eyes the song-thrush's eye is full of pathos. 

 But I am not considering the question of expression, 

 but that of vivid, striking, or staring colour. 



I can think, indeed, of no small bird with iris 

 of this kind. I believe the lesser spotted wood- 

 pecker (which, I have never seen alive) has the iris 

 red, to match perhaps the crimson of its crown ; 



