11th. The tears must be clear, limpid and confined within the lower lid. Any milkiness, flocculency or overflow is indicative of disease.
12th. The eyelids must be thin, delicate, evenly and uniformly curved along the borders, and fringed by an abundance of strong, prominent and well directed lashes. Puffiness or swelling betrays inflammation, dropsy, anæmia, parasitism or other disorder, angularity of the upper lid an internal ophthalmia, and depilation or wrong direction of the lashes, local disease.
13th. The eye should respond instantly, by movement, to new objects and noises, without showing undue irritability or restlessness. The intelligent apprehension of the objects will introduce an aspect of calmness and docility.
DEFECTS, BLEMISHES AND ABNORMALITIES OF THE HORSE’S EYE.
Some of these may be present in the absence of actual disease, and yet prove so objectionable that they disqualify the animal for any use, in which style or æsthetic appearance is demanded. Among such sources of disqualification may be noted:
1st. The small eye. One or both eyes may appear small because of internal pain and retraction within their sockets, or from actual atrophy or contraction of the eyeball, the result of deep seated disease, or the organ may be congenitally small, and deep seated in the orbit, and the thick tardy eyelids may have a narrow opening through which they can only be partially seen. This last condition usually implies a dull lymphatic constitution, low breeding and a lack of intelligence, docility and vigor.
2d. The semi-closed eye with thick, coarse, sluggish lids. In this case the bulb may be not unduly small, yet as it is not freely exposed it conveys the same general expression to the observer. Like the small eye it indicates low breeding, lack of intelligence or docility and often stubbornness or even vice.
3d. The convex eye. In this the transparent cornea describes the arc of an unduly small circle, suggesting a conical form and projecting unduly beyond the margins of the lids. It implies imperfect vision, myopia, and, it is alleged, low breeding and lack of alertness.
4th. The sunken eye. This has been already referred to under the small eye. The eyelids are usually flaccid, the upper being drawn in by its levator so as to form an angle, and the edges of the orbit are somewhat prominent. It is seen in old, worn out animals, which have lost the pads of fat in the depth of the orbit, and more commonly in animals that have suffered several attacks of recurrent ophthalmia.
5th. The projecting eye. In this case the lids are unduly contracted and the eye protrudes between them so as to show a large amount of sclerotic around the transparent cornea. This may be due to nervous strain and suffering but, however produced it is decidedly unsightly and objectionable.