The Human Eye

IN this small work the author tells us that he has incorporated the substance of a lecture on the subject, together with additions in various directions. He discusses, in a popular manner, the eye in man, and adds many facts with regard to its structure in other animals. His remarks are mostly anatomical, and we are disappointed to see so little notice of many physiological phenomena connected with the power of sight, which bring out the beauty of the organ of vision in a way which can be understood by the most amateur of readers. There is a want of consecutive-ness in many of the paragraphs and chapters, though as a whole the book is a very readable one. Many of the instances given are wanting in grasp; for instance it is remarked that “In some of the ichneumons or ‘Pharaoh's rats’ as the Egyptians call them, in the coatimundi, which somewhat resembles the racoon, and in the mangre, the osseous orbital ring is incomplete, and in a group of minor quadrupeds, entitled the Hyracidæ, the malar, or cheek bone, constitutes a perfect orbital ring.”It is well known that the orbital ring is complete in all the Ouadrumana and many Ungulata, and that it is absent inmost other mammals; why then take the particular examples, which are not particularly good ones, and lay special stress on them. The deductions drawn are of a strongly teleological nature, and we cannot do better than recommend the author's reperusal of his work for the refutation of one of his concluding remarks, namely, that “In reviewing this very imperfect and disconnected sketch of the structure of the eyes of the different classes of animals, we cannot fail to recognise the fact that the human eye far transcends, both in mechanism and power, that of every other animal.” We however deduce that the condor can see further, that many animals have an extra eyelid, and some bigger eyes than man himself, showing that his is inferior instead of superior in many respects.The Human Eye.W.WhalleyBy. (London: J. & A. Churchill.)