I. Compound eyes.

1. Eyes with prismatic, plano-convex lenses.

A pellucid, smooth and glossy integument, a direct continuation of the common test of the body covers the corneal lenses, quite as is the case in so many of the recent crustacea. In the plurality it is, however, difficult to discern the lenses from the outside.

The lenses, as seen in a vertical section of the eye of Asaphus expansus, (pl. I fig. 12), are columnar prisms, like the pillars of basalt, attaining a length of 0,2 mm and at the point where the eye joins the test of 0,3 mm. At their interior extremity they have a breadth of 0,066 mm. On that point the surface is convex and at the exterior surface plane. They are closely packed and in a transverse section resemble a pavement of regular hexaeders. But they also assume other shapes and become rhombs or even quadrates, as seen in a specimen of Asaphus fallax (pl. I fig. 18), where the hexaeders and quadrates lie side by side without transitional forms. As a rule the lenses become more and more irregular in the vicinity of the surrounding frame or near the suture, nearly blotted out, as it were, and without any definite border line mingled with the confused, spongy mass that like a belt or a frame surrounds they eye in Asaphus and is sharply limited from the other part of the free cheek. This remarkable zone which is almost only present amongst the Asaphidæ (Asaphus, Megalaspis, Ptychopyge, Isotelus) retains in a confused manner somewhat of the prismatic structure of the eye as shown in the section (Pl. I, fig. 11, b). The eye of Bumastus also is environed by a similar zone, with a structure like that of the eye (Pl. II fig 35, 41).

In an undetermined species of Asaphus the lenses, although somewhat apart, are of an elongated hexaedric outline, which passes into a regular circular one farther away and on the surface of the eye they are slightly convex (Pl. I figs 27-29). In other genera belonging to this group the shape of the lenses are like those of Asaphus, so for instance in Illænus (I. chiron and I. Esmarki) and in Niobe. In Dysplanus centrotus they are shorter and broad, and their interior or lower surface strongly convex. It is likewise so in Nileus, where Nileus armadillo has an exceedingly thick exterior integument above the lenses. Such an integument has in a still higher degree increased in Bumastus sulcatus so as to exceed in thickness the stratum of the corneal prisms and it may in fact be doubted if the eyes of this species ever were able to function as visual organs. Proetus nearly resembles Bumastus in the thickness of the integument covering the prismatic lenses, which are interiorly convex, with a diameter of 0,03 mm.

In all genera belonging to this group a horizontal section gives the image of the hexaeders as in Asaphus with some change to squares or rhombs.

In scrutinizing a horizontal, somewhat extensive section of an eye in this group of trilobites, it will be perceived, as for instance in the figures (Pl. V fig. 16, 22) that the regular and evidently homogenous and intact prismatic lenses by and by have been altered and in a part of the section, a little distant from the intact ones disintegrated in their interior, showing various aspects of alteration. I cannot but think that this is a destruction which has set in long after the fossilization. It has revealed certain states of the intimate structure, certain delicate details, that now with an astonishing regularity come in sight and probably also lie hidden in the intact prisms. In the specimens of Asaphus, which we have studied, the alteration has taken the shape of a concentric stratification forming the body of the prisms, which is well discernible in a horizontal section, but not easy to detect in the longitudinal one (Pl. I figs 9-10, 11). It is likewise so in Niobe. In the other genera again the decomposition makes the prisms look like empty tubes in which a few irregular traverses and trabecular remains of their solid mass radiate towards the interior. They thus assume the aspect of a composite coral with its septa in the calicles (Pl. VI fig. 31). This is also evident in Nileus palpebrosus and Dysplanus.

2. Eyes with biconvex lenses.

The surface of the eye is, as in Chirurus glaber Ang., a mass of contiguous hemispherical lenses, probably once covered with a membrane, as is still to be seen in well preserved specimens of Bronteus laticauda. Both in Chirurus and Bronteus the lenses seen vertically are globular and ordinated beside each other either continuous or separated only through a faint dividing line. In a horizontal section passing right through the point of contact they show the common hexaedral shape and when somewhat corroded the interior radiate structure also comes forth, the radii directed towards a little black point in the centre. The lenses of the Brontei have the same stellate structure as in Bumastus (Pl. II fig. 7). In Cyrtometopus the lenses are in size the fourth of those in Chirurus and they form an extremely thin stratum in strongest contrast with the adjoining cheek, which surpasses them more than six times in thickness (Pl. III fig. 19). The lenses of Cyrtometopus are more flattened and irregular than in the former genera. The free cheek around the eyes does not form a border zone, somewhat imitating the eye structure as in Asaphus, but is more compact, composed of vertical elements which give to the test of the trilobites in general a tendency to split up in vertical prisms.

Of a peculiar interest are the eyes in the oldest of all oculate trilobites, at present with certainty known, Eurycare, Peltura, Sphærophthalmus and Ctenopyge.

Of these genera Eurycare is the oldest (see table p. 22). Amongst the many free and detached cheeks only a single, very little one has been found with the eye ball fixed. It seems to be of the same structure as in Sphærophthalmus. In Sphærophthalmus and Ctenopyge the eye globes are enormous, considering the size of the cheek in which they are set and occupy more than a third of the length of the free cheek (Pl. III f. 26, 31). They are hemispheric, blackish and glossy, more so in the former genus. The spheroidal lenses, projecting on the surface, are in Ctenopyge larger near the facial suture and small at the opposite side where the eye is fixed in the free cheek. For the rest, in both genera (Pl. III fig. 34) the lenses form a thin stratum, where they in a vertical section lie elongated, flattened and biconvex, slightly joined with each other at the point of contact. The fine form which they exhibit reminds of the lenses of Sphæroma.[29] They are in diameter thrice as long as they are high. Seen in a horizontal section passing through the point of contact they show hexaeders with a curiously jagged outline (Pl. III fig. 33).

Peltura which is coeval with these, has a narrow semiglobose visual field (Pl. III figs 35-41), the superior surface of which is quite smooth and evenly rounded. On its interior side there stand out, somewhat distantiated, in a low relief semiglobular facets, quite as regular incrassations of the cornea, thus not forming free lenses, but rather reminding of the for the rest differently formed quasi-lenses of Limulus. In a vertical section they appear as the inferior moiety of real ovate lenses (Pl. III f. 40-41).

The much younger Acerocare has a similar cornea. A very little specimen, the head of scarcely more than one millim. in length, retains both eyes, of which one shows the slightly convex lenses and the other a cast of the interior side as in Peltura. These both genera should in consequence of their peculiar limuloid cornea be ranged for themselves apart from the real lenticulate genera, but any material sufficient for doing this properly, is at present not at hand.