57 
they commonly seek their prey in the beginning of 
night, in silence, being under the cover of twilight 
able to approach the herbivorous animals, whom 
their appearance would scare. The hyzena, however, 
sleeps by day in his cave, and the jackal in his bur- 
row. The structure of the eye, whereby the cat 
kind is generally enabled to expand the pupil more 
widely than other quadrupeds, peculiarly fits this 
order of animals for nocturnal exertion. The lion, 
and tiger, and leopard, and all those which have re- 
tractile claws, creep, with their stomachs close to 
the ground, behind the thickest covert, as near as 
possible to their unsuspecting victims, on which they 
make a sudden spring; and which, on failure of 
their aim, they rarely pursue, or but for a very short 
distance ®. Ruminant animals feed about equally 
by night and by day, at regular intervals, and oc- 
cupy the intervening portions of time in chewing 
the cud. The hare and rabbit kinds feed mostly at 
morn and eve: the bat, the mole, and hedgehog, 
shun the light of day. The typhlus hardly shews 
even the place of an eye: the cornea is permanently 
covered by the epidermis, as that of the snake. Eyes 
vary in magnitude: those of the field mouse are 
large and prominent; as large in proportion to its 
bulk as those of the Bengal tiger. The eyes of the 
elephant and rhinoceros are proportionately small ; 
as also are those of the sorex, the little proboscis 
¢ The cheta, or hunting leopard, which pursues its prey, is 
without the retractile claw. Query whether the eye be less cat- 
like than that of other leopards. 
