on Muscular Motion. 
1 3 
ject. Dr. Russel says, that the relation of Volney is true ; 
and that it is the amusement of the inhabitants, or rather of 
the Europeans, to allure birds by throwing up pieces of bread 
from the flat tops of the houses ; these birds, to the best of 
his recollection, are the common gull (larus canus Linn.), 
which appear only at certain seasons. 
But a fact more to the purpose of the present inquiry, is 
what Dr. Russel remembers often to have heard asserted by 
the European sportsmen at Aleppo, and indeed sometimes ob- 
served himself; namely, that in the most serene weather, when 
not a speck could be seen in the sky, nor any object discovered 
in the horizon of an extensive plain, a dog or other animal 
killed by accident, or shot, and left behind by the sportsmen 
as they traversed the country, in the space of a few minutes 
was surrounded by birds, before invisible, either of the vul- 
ture tribe or the sea eagles ( ossifragus Linn.). Whether 
these birds by vision were directed to their prey, or allured by 
scent, he would not undertake to pronounce, but the pheno- 
menon occasioned wonder ; and the more so, as there was not 
time for putrefaction to take place, which might be supposed 
to diffuse scent to a great distance. 
The eyes of birds are larger in proportion than those of any 
other animal, the eye of a thrush being equal to that of a rab- 
bit. They are also broader in proportion to their depth than 
in the quadruped ; and the cornea is more prominent. 
The cornea is very thin when examined immediately after 
death, and is at that time more elastic than afterwards. In the 
goose, it was stretched so as to be elongated ~~ of an inch, 
but in an hour afterwards it had become thicker, and less 
elastic. The cornea is not united to the sclerotic coat by the 
