231155,19 Oc 11526.1.42

NOV 12180+

LONDON:

Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY and HENRY FLEY,

Bangor House, Shoe Lane.

DEDICATION

ΤΟ

PROFESSOR OWEN, F.R.S.

ETC. ETC.

MY DEAR SIR,

A FEW months ago our friend, Dr. Southwood Smith, in speaking of you, remarked, "That one head contains all that is known of physiology up to the present time."

When it is considered how immense a field of direct and complicated phenomena such knowledge involves, each department being more than enough for any man's life, who would search it through all its remotest bearings,-the thought may occur to many persons that I

a 3

iv

should apologize for associating your name with the present little work, which only pretends to give a romantic account of science, in illustrating the different character of vision in different creatures. But, knowing, as I do, that your largeness of mind, in the enormous accumulation of facts of Natural History, has even extended itself to those shadowy and mysterious boundaries, where fact and experiment, being unable to proceed a degree further, may permit you to listen with no halfaverted ear to the possible revelations of a "reasoning imagination," I cannot but feel, without relying upon personal friendship as my excuse, that Philosophy herself may not only pardon, but rather encourage me to place the present novel attempt under your protection.

Believe me, dear Sir,

Your obliged friend,

THE AUTHOR.