These dorsal eyes are very perfect in elaboration, possessing lens, retinal nerve-end cells, retinal pigment and optic nerve.
But they also receive the nerve fibres of the optic nerve.
Another cartilage or ossification, the posterior sclerotic ring, occurs within the walls of the posterior portion of the cup, and surrounds, especially in the Pici and in the Passeres, the entrance of the optic nerve.
Hickson and others, that in the bivalves Pecten and Spondylus, which also have eyes upon the mantle quite distinct from typical cephalic eyes, there is the same relationship as in Oncidiidae of the optic nerve to the retinal cells.
The lateral eyes are in Limulus " compound eyes," that is to say, consist of many lenses placed close together; beneath each lens is a complex of protoplasmic cells, in which the optic nerve terminates.