Cliap. 55.] 
THE NATUEE OF THE PUPIL. 
53 
small as it is, is able to reflect the entire image of a man. 
This^^ is the reason why most birds, when held in the hand 
of a person, will more particularly peck at his eyes ; for seeing 
their own likeness reflected in the pupils, they are attracted to 
it by what seem to be the objects of their natural afPection. 
It is only some few beasts of burden that are subject to 
maladies of the eyes towards the increase of the moon : but it 
is man alone that is rescued from blindness by the discharge 
of the humours^® that have caused it. Many persons have 
had their sight restored after being blind for twenty years ; 
while others, again, have been denied this blessing from their 
very birth, without there being any blemish in the eyes. Many 
persons, again, have suddenly lost their sight from no apparent 
cause, and without any preceding injury. The most learned 
authors say that there are veins which communicate from the 
eye to the brain, but I am inclined to think that the communi- 
cation is with the stomach ; for it is quite certain that a person 
never loses the eye without feeling sickness at the stomach. It 
is an important and sacred duty, of high sanction among the 
Eomans, to close the eyes of the dead, and then again to open 
them when the body is laid on the funeral pile, the usage 
having taken its rise in the notion of its being improper that 
the eyes of the dead should be beheld by man, while it is an 
equally great olfence to hide them from the view of heaven. 
Man is the only living creature the eyes of which are subject 
to deformities, from which, in fact, arose the family names of 
Strabo'^^ and "Psetus." ^ The ancients used to call a man 
who was born with only one eye, codes," and ocella," a 
person whose eyes were remarkably small. Luscinus'' was 
the surname given to one who happened to have lost one eye 
by an accident. 
The eyes of animals that see at night in the dark, eats, for 
instance, are shining and radiant, so much so, that it is impos- 
sible to look upon them ; those of the she-goat, too, and the 
welfare resplendent, and emit a light like fire. The eyes of 
the sea-calf and the hyaena change successively to a thousand 
^"^ Hardouin with justice doubts the soundness of this alleged reason. 
9^ He alludes, probably, to some method of curing cataract ; perhaps 
somewhat similar to that mentioned by him in B. xx. c. 20. 
This was done by the nearest relatives. This usage still prevails in 
this country, the eyelids being pressed down with pieces of gold or silver. 
^ Or "squint-eyed." ^ Qr "cock-eyed." 
