The eyes of fishes generally are so 
nearly round that they may be used 
with good effect as simple microscopes 
and have considerable magnifying 
power. Being continually washed 
with the element in which they move, 
they have no need for winking and 
the lachrymal duct which supplies 
tears to the eyes of most of the animal 
kingdom is entirely wanting. Whales 
have no tear glands in their eyes, and 
the whole order of Cetacea are tearless. 
Among domestic animals there is 
considerable variety of structure in the 
eye. The pupil is usually round, but 
in the small Cats it is long vertically, 
and in the Sheep, in fact, in all the 
cud chewers and many other grass 
eaters, the pupil is long hori- 
zontally. 
Insects present a wonderful array of 
eyes. These are not movable, but 
the evident purpose is that there shall 
be an eye in readiness in whatever 
direction the insect may have business. 
The common Ant has fifty six-cornered 
jewels set advantageously in his little 
head and so arranged as to take in 
everything that pertains to the pleasure 
of the industrious little creature. As 
the Ant does not move about with great 
rapidity he is less in need of many 
eyes than the House-fly which calls 
into play four thousand brilliant facets, 
while the Butterfly is supplied with 
about seventeen thousand. The most 
remarkable of all is the blundering 
Beetle which bangs his head against 
the wall with twenty-five thousand 
eyes wide open. 
THE HUNTED SQUIRREL. 
HEN as a nimble Squirrel from the wood 
Ranging the hedges for his filbert food 
Sits pertly on a bough, his brown nuts cracking 
And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking ; 
Till with their crooks and bags a sort of boys 
To share with him come with so great a noise 
That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke, 
And for his life leap to a neighbor oak, 
Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes ; 
Whilst through the quagmires and red water plashes 
The boys run dabbing through thick and thin. 
One tears his hose, another breaks his shin ; 
This, torn and tattered, hath with much ado 
Got by the briars ; and that hath lost his shoe ; 
This drops his band ; that headlong falls for haste ; 
Another cries behind for being last ; 
With sticks and stones and many a sounding holloa 
The little fool with no small sport they follow, 
Whilst he from tree to tree, from spray to spray 
Gets to the woods and hides him in his dray. 
—William Browne, 
Old English Poet, 
