THE EYE. 80 



ing the drum of the ear. It should not therefore be cut out, as 

 is sometimes customary. 



The sound, collected by the outer ear, is conveyed through the 

 external auditory passage to the membrana tympani — ^the mem- 

 brane of the drum, stretching across and closing the external 

 passage. Between this and another membrane stiU deeper in 

 the ear, are four httle bones, highly elastic, and covered with a 

 highly elastic cartilage, by means of which the vibrations of 

 sound are conveyed more perfectly than they would be through 

 the mere air of the cavity. 



It is conveyed to a strangely irregular cavity, filled with an 

 aqueous fluid, and the substance or pulp of the portio moUis or 

 soft portion of the seventh pair of nerves, the auditory nerve, 

 expands on the membrane that lines the walls of this cavity. 



Sound is propagated far more intensely through water than 

 through air ; and therefore it is that an aqueous fluid occupies 

 those chambers of the ear on the walls of which the auditory 

 nerve is expanded. 



The Eye — The Eye is a most important organ, and comes 

 next under consideration, as enclosed in the bones of the skull. 

 The eye of the horse should be large, somewhat but not too 

 prominent, and the eyehd fine and thin. If the eye is sunk, in 

 the head, and apparently little — for there is actually a very tri- 

 fling difierence in the size of the eye in animals of the same spe- 

 cies and bulk, and that seeming difierence arises from the larger 

 or smaller opening between the lids — and the lid is thick, and 

 fispecially if there is any puckering towards the inner corner of 

 the lids, that eye either is diseased, or has lately been subject tc 

 inflammation ; and, particularly, if one eye is smaller than the 

 other, it has, at no great distance of time, been inflamed. 



The eye of the horse enables us with tolerable accuracy tc 

 guess at his temiper. If much of the white is sf^en, the buyer 

 should pause ere he completes his bargain ; for horses exhibiting 

 this characteristic are usually found vicious-tempered. 



The eyes are placed at the side of the head, but the direction 

 of the conoid cavity which they occupy, and of the sheath by 

 which they are surrounded within the orbit, gives them a pre- 

 vailing, directi^ forwards, so that the animal has a very extended 

 field of vision. 



The eye-ball is placed in the anterior and most capacious part 

 of the orbit, nearer to the frontal than the temporal side, with a 

 degree of prominence varying with different individuals, and the 

 will of the animal. It is protected by a bony socket beneath and 

 on the inside, but js partially exposed on the roof and on the out- 

 side. It is, however, covered and secured by thick and powerful 

 (Tuscles — ^by a mass of adipose matter which is distributed to va 



