The eyes of fishes generally are so 

 nearly round that they may be used 

 with good effect as simple microscopes 

 and have considerable magnifying 

 power. Being continually washed 

 with the element in which they move, 

 they have no need for winking and 

 the lachrymal duct which supplies 

 tears to the eyes of most of the animal 

 kingdom is entirely wanting. Whales 

 have no tear glands in their eyes, and 

 the whole order of Cetacea are tearless. 



Among domestic animals there is 

 considerable variety of structure in the 

 eye. The pupil is usually round, but 

 in the small Cats it is long vertically, 

 and in the Sheep, in fact, in all the 

 cud chewers and many other grass 

 eaters, the pupil is long hori- 

 zontally. 



Insects present a wonderful array of 

 eyes. These are not movable, but 

 the evident purpose is that there shall 

 be an eye in readiness in whatever 

 direction the insect may have business. 

 The common Ant has fifty six-cornered 

 jewels set advantageously in his little 

 head and so arranged as to take in 

 everything that pertains to the pleasure 

 of the industrious little creature. As 

 the Ant does not move about with great 

 rapidity he is less in need of many 

 eyes than the House-fly which calls 

 into play four thousand brilliant facets, 

 while the Butterfly is supplied with 

 about seventeen thousand. The most 

 remarkable of all is the blundering 

 Beetle which bangs his head against 

 the wall with twenty-five thousand 

 eyes wide open. 



THE HUNTED SQUIRREL. 



(^ HEN as a nimble Squirrel from the wood 



4 Ranging the hedges for his filbert food 



Q J I Sits pertly on a bough, his brown nuts cracking 



And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking ; 



Till with their crooks and bags a sort of boys 



To share with him come with so great a noise 



That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke. 



And for his life leap to a neighbor oak, 



Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes ; 



Whilst through the quagmires and red water plashes 



The boys run dabbing through thick and thin. 



One tears his hose, another breaks his shin ; 



This, torn and tattered, hath with much ado 



Got by the briars ; and that hath lost his shoe , 



This drops his band ; that headlong falls for haste ; 



• Another cries behind for being last ; 



With sticks and stones and many a sounding holloa 



The little fool with no small sport they follow, 



Whilst he from tree to tree, from spray to spray 



Gets to the woods and hides him in his dray. 



—William Browne, 



0/r/ EjiorJish PocT. 

 87 



