THE 



FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



CHAPTER I. 

 VISION OP BIRDS. 



THE animals most celebrated for piercing sight are 

 the eagle and the lynx ; but if the acute vision of 

 the eagle rested on no better authority than that of 

 the lynx, we should not be disposed to rely on its 

 accuracy, though old Aldrovand says that " nobody 

 of sound mind will deny the lynx to be the clearest 

 sighted of all quadrupeds, since all naturalists are 

 agreed upon the point*." There can be little doubt, 

 however, that the agreement thus quoted as an au- 

 thority sprung from reading and copying rather than 

 from observation ; or perhaps, as Gesrier seems to 

 think, from the similarity of the name to Lynceus, 

 whom the poets fable to have been able to look 

 through trees, walls, and rocks, and even, if we credit 

 Apollonius, to see into the very bowels of the earth. 

 "The truth. is," says Gesner, " that Lynceus, of 

 whom so many fables are told, was the first that 

 found out the mines of gold, silver, and copper in 

 the earth, and therefore simple people seeing him 

 bring gold and silver out of the earth, and coming 

 * De Quadrupedibus Viv. p. 94. 



B 



