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Now, we find the ears of many kinds of water birds are very small and well covered with 

 feathers, probably to prevent the water getting into them, but to make up for this, their sight is 

 very keen, and like most other kinds of birds their eyes are placed at each side of the head, 

 giving them a very wide range of vision without the necessity of turning their heads. Land 

 birds generally have larger ears which are covered by longer feathers, but which are thin probably 

 to allow sound to easily penetrate the ear. Now, when we come to owls we see a great 

 difference : an owl has a face, and its large eyes look forward, and in consequence, without 

 turning its head, it cannot see behind it ; probably to make up for this it has enormous ears to 

 give it warning what is occurring behind it. Should any one not have seen an owl's ears, I 

 would recommend him on the first opportunity to look at them merely for curiosity, but by no 

 means to kill one for such purpose only, unless he takes sufficient interest so as to be anxious 

 to learn something from the examination. The ear is twenty times as large as that of other 

 birds. Why should the horned owls have such splendid orange coloured eyes whilst the 

 unhorned owls often have dark eyes? One might fancy the former had such eyes to strike 

 their prey with terror, that is if the prey sees them as we do, at the same time they generally 

 feed at night, and one may well ask how each sees in the dark. Has any one yet found 

 out the difference in the eyes of such birds as see by day and such as see by night? There 

 must be some difference. 



When considering the position of the eyes in different creatures, I may perhaps call 

 attention to this in man; here we find his eyes not only in such a position as to make his 

 appearance more uniform than what could be possible were they in any other position, but also 



