We would find it a great advantage in life if our mental apprehension
was capable of including the entire horizon as the insect mentioned
below is able to see in all directions.
A boy is often easily surprized by a playmate who approaches him
stealthily from behind, but did you ever try the same game with
a butterfly? I have, many a time. After getting cautiously so
near to a butterfly at rest as to be able to distinguish between
its head and its hinder extremity, I have quietly circled round
it so as to approach it from behind, being at the time under the
impression that it wouldn’t see me under those circumstances.
But not the slightest advantage did I derive from this
stratagem, for the position and construction of its eyes enabled
it to see almost all ways at once.--W. FURNEAUX,
“Butterflies and Moths.”
(2849)
* * * * *
Many insects have a great number of eyes, because the orb of the
eye is fixt; there is, therefore, placed over the eye a multiple
lens which conducts light to the eye from every direction; so
that the insect can see with a fixt eye as readily as it could
have done with a movable one. As many as 1,400 eyes, or inlets
of light, have been counted in the head of a drone bee. The
spider has eight eyes, mounted on different parts of the head;
two in front, two in the top of the head, and two on each side.
One mark of the well-balanced man is the ability to see in all
directions.
(2850)