Enclosed in a bubble

“We must [...] imagine all the animals that animate Nature around us, be they beetles, butterflies, gnats, or dragonflies who populate a meadow, as having a soap bubble around them, closed on all sides, which closes off their visual space and in which everything visible for the subject is also enclosed. Each bubble shelters other places, and in each are also found the directional planes of effective space, which gives a solid scaffolding to space. The birds that flutter about, the squirrels hopping from branch to branch, or the cows grazing in the meadow, all remain permanently enclosed in the bubble that encloses their space.”

Jakob von Uexküll
A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans
Translated by Joseph D. O'Neill
Introduction by Dorion Sagan
Afterword by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young
University of Minnesota Press
F.I.U. Library
(p. 69)

(Afbeelding via Natural History Museum: How do other animals see the world?)