CHAP. 55.—THE NATURE OF THE PUPIL-EYES WHICH DO NOT
SHUT.
In the midst of the cornea of the eye Nature has formed a
window in the pupil, the small dimensions of which do not
permit the sight to wander at hazard and with uncertainty,
hut direct it as straight as though it were through a tube,
and at the same time ensure its avoidance of all shocks communicated by foreign bodies. The pupils are surrounded by a
black circle in some persons, while it is of a yellowish cast with
others, and azure again with others. By this happy combination the light is received by the eye upon the white that lies
around the pupil, and its reflection being thus tempered, it
fails to impede or confuse the sight by its harshness. So
complete a mirror, too, does the eye form, that the pupil,
small as it is, is able to reflect the entire image of a man.
This
1 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 affection.
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
2 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 communication 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
Romans, to close
3 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 offence 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"
4 and "Pætus."
5 The ancients used to call a man
who was born with only one eye, "cocles," and "ocella," a
person whose eyes were remarkably small. " Luscinus" was
the surname given to one who happened to have lost one eve
by an accident.
The eyes of animals that see at night in the dark, cats, for
instance, are shining and radiant, so much so, that it is impossible to look upon them; those of the she-goat, too, and the
wolf are resplendent, and emit a light like fire. The eyes of
the sea-calf and the hyena change successively to a thousand
colours; and the eyes, when dried, of most of the fishes will
give out light in the dark, just in the same way as the trunk
of the oak when it has become rotten with extreme old age.
We have already mentioned
6 the fact, that animals which turn,
not the eyes but the head, for the purpose of looking round,
are never known to wink. It is said,
7 too, that the chameleon is able to roll the eye-balls completely round. Crabs look
sideways, and have the eves enclosed beneath a thin crust.
Those of craw-fish and shrimps are very hard and prominent,
and lie in a great measure beneath a defence of a similar
nature. Those animals, however, the eyes of which are hard,
have worse sight than those of which the eyes are formed of a
humid substance. It is said that if the eyes are taken away
from the young of serpents and of the swallow,
8 they will grow
again. In all insects and in animals covered with a shell, the
eyes move just in the same way as the ears of quadrupeds do;
those among them which have a brittle
9 covering have the
eyes hard. All animals of this nature, as well as fishes and
insects, are destitute of eye-lids, and their eyes have no covering; but in all there is a membrane that is transparent like
glass, spread over them.