Covccrnino Eyes. 1 89 



Argentine of Spanish blood, and was called by his 

 neighbours ojos cscriion, or written eyes. It struck 

 me as a very curious circumstance that these eyes, 

 both in their ground colour and the form and dis- 

 position of the markings traced on them, were 

 precisely like the eyes of a species of grebe, common 

 in La Plata. Browning had perhaps observed eyes 

 of this kind in some person he had met, when he 

 makes his magician say to Pietro de Abano, — 



Mark ■within my eyes its iris mystic lettered — 

 That's my mime ! 



But we look in vain amongst men for the splendid 

 crimson, flaming yellow, or startling white orbs 

 which would have made the dark-skinned brave, 

 inspired by violent emotions, a being terrible to see. 

 Nature has neglected man in this respect, and it is 

 to remedy the omission that he stains his face with 

 bright pigments and crowns his head with eagles' 

 barred plumes. 



The quality of shining in the dark, seen in 

 the eyes of many nocturnal and semi-nocturnal 

 species, has always, I believe, a hostile pur- 

 pose. When found in inoffensive species, as, for 

 instance, in the lemurs, it can only be attributed to 

 mimicry, and this would be a parallel case with 

 butterflies mimicking the brilliant " warning 

 colours" of other species on which birds do not 

 prey. Cats amongst mammals, and owls amongst 

 birds, have been most highly favoured ; but to the 

 owls the palm must be given. The feline eyes, as 



