THE LION 47 



If you look at a cat's whiskers, you will see that they are just 

 as wide as her body. At the root of each hair is a very delicate 

 nerve, so placed that the cat can tell at once if the tip of the 

 whiskers is touched. It is easy to understand how useful these 

 whiskers may be to the cat when she is hunting for food. 



Suppose she catches sight of a bird or a mouse, and is trying to 

 creep up to it through some bushes. She must keep her eyes fixed 



Persian Cat. (From a Photograph by Thomas Fall.) 



on her victim, and cannot use them to see where she is going. And 

 so she might try to crawl through some opening where there was 

 not sufficient room for her body to pass. But her whiskers at once 

 tell her that the passage is too narrow ; and she is able to draw back 

 her head without making any sound to alarm her victim. 



The lion's eyes, also, are like those of the cat, and are just as 

 useful upon a dark night. Of course, neither a lion nor a cat can 

 see when it is perfectly dark. But the eyes of both are formed in 

 such a manner that they can see well when there is so little light 

 that we could not use our eyes at all. 



Let us try to understand how this is. You know, perhaps, that 

 it is the round dark spot in the middle of our eyes through which 

 we really see. We call this the '' pupil " of the eye. Now the 



