THE ANATOMY OF BIRDS. —NEUROLOGY. 
181 
the eyes from the glare of light ; and doubtless the eagle throws the same screen over its sight 
when soaring towards the sun. When not in action, the winker lies curled up in the corner of 
the eye, like those patent window shades which stay up of themselves till pulled down. The 
ingenious mechanism of the movement of the winker across the lid may be understood with the 
help of fig. 81, which represents the hack of the eye-ball. The winker lies in front, on the left 
hand of the picture, and is to be pulled across the front by the slender tendon, of the pyrami- 
dalis muscle, h. As h contracts it pulls on k, and k, winding round to the front, pulls the 
winker to the right hand. But i is the optic nerve, entering the ball; k would press upon 
it, were it not fended off by passing, as seen by the dotted line, through a pulley in the end 
of the quadratus muscle, g. The harder h pulls, the harder does g also pull, their consentane- 
ous action at once giving the proper direction to the tendon and keeping it off the nerve. 
Beneath the eye-lids, upon the ball, is a delicate filmy membrane not easily recognized on 
ordinary inspection : this is the conjunctiva, so called because it joins the eye to the lids. The 
ocular layer is transparent where it passes over the cornea : it is then reflected away from the 
ball, to form the palpebral layer, — a folding between being the nictitating membrane. The 
conjunctiva is highly vascular, but the blood-vessels are too small to be seen unless they be- 
come congested, when the eye presents the well-known appearance called blood-shot. Though 
birds can hardly be said to cry, they have a well-developed apparatus for the manufacture of 
tears. The lacrymal are two small glands lying one in each corner of the eye, inner and 
outer. The former, called the harderian gland, is the smaller, deeply seated behind the 
winker, upon which it pours a glary fluid : it is an oil-can which not only supplies but 
applies the fluid to the winker, which needs constant lubricating to work well. The lac- 
rymal gland proper is the outer one, which prepares the tears to moisten and cleanse the 
conjunctiva; after which they are drained off by the lacrymal duct into the cavity of the 
nose, which thus becomes a sort of cesspool to receive the refuse waters of the eye. A third 
gland about the orbit has been already mentioned (p. 178) as pertaining to the nose, not to the 
eye. Its site is shown in the crescentic super-orbital depression, fig. 68, w. 
The motions of the eye-ball, though more restricted than in mammals, owing to the shape 
of the ball and its close socketing, are nevertheless subserved by the usual number of six mus- 
cles. Of these four are called the recti, or straight muscles, and two the obliqui, or oblique 
muscles; though they are all straight" enough, the terms applying to their lines of traction. 
The four recti arise from the bony orbit, near together, about the optic foramen, and pass to 
be inserted in the eye-ball at as many nearly equidistant points on its circumference ; the 
musculus rectus superior, fig. 81, a, on top; m. r. inferior, c, below, antagonizing a ; the m. r. 
externus, h, and internus, d, respectively to the outer and inner (hindward and forward) sides, 
also antagonizing each other. The two oblique muscles arise further forward in the bony or- 
bit, near each other, and then diverge obliquely upward, m. o. superior, e, and downward, m. 
o. inferior, f, to be inserted near the margin of the globe of the eye, close by the respective in- 
sertions of superior and inferior rectus. All the motions of the ball result fi-om consentaneous 
or dissentaneous action along these six lines of traction ; the muscles acting as ropes to pull 
the ball about, and to steady it in any direction of its axis. The peculiarity of mechanism in a 
bird is, that the superior oblique goes straight to its insertion, instead of passing through a 
pulley which changes its line of action in mammals. The special nerves presiding over 
these muscles (3, 4, 6) have been pointed out already (p. 177). In the figure, the cut orbital 
ends of them all are reflected away from the ball to disclose the underlying muscles of the 
winker : the reader must mentally bring the six loose ends together and fasten them to the 
bony orbit at points near about opposite i, as above said of their origins. 
The above are the principal circumstances and accessories of the optic apparatus ; we may 
now examine the eye itself, of which fig. 82 gives an enlarged view, in longitudinal vertical 
section, — the nerve, marsupium, and ciliary processes not indeed lying as shown in this section. 
