Muscle in the Eyes of Fishes. 625 



suspicion. Be it so. That I should, however, have con- 

 ceived that Mr. Wallace, residing in, and attached to one of 

 the public establishments of, New York, was an American 

 either by birth or adoption, was at least a very pardonable 

 mistake, and one that involved him in no disgrace. He has, 

 however, retaliated on me by suspecting that I had read and 

 copied, without acknowledgement, the observations made by 

 him in Silliman's Journal in 1834. My answer is that I have 

 never seen that Journal, nor did I know anything of Mr. Wal- 

 lace's dissections until I received an abstract of his paper, 

 which I quoted at some length in the March number of your 

 Magazine for this year. And further, that my dissections 

 were made two years or more previous to the date of Mr. 

 Wallace's paper in Prof. Silliman's Journal. 



In conclusion, — as I find Mr. Wallace has distinctly deni- 

 ed, in a recent number of Silliman's Journal, having either 

 seen or heard of my observations, I am bound in justice to 

 relieve him from any imputation, which I am now sorry I have 

 made. While anxious to clear myself from the suspicion of 

 plagiary, I can do no less than withdraw that portion of my 

 charge which relates to Mr. Wallace, in the March number 

 of your Magazine. 



I am, My dear Sir, 

 Yours faithfully, 



John Dalrymple. 



8, New Broad St. 

 Oct. 3rd, 1838. 



To the Editor of The Magazine of Natural History. 



[We quote the following passage from Mr. Dalrymple's paper, p. 140, 

 of the present volume. "In a number of the American Journal of Science 

 and Arts, will he found a somewhat similar account of a muscle, discovered 

 in the eye of the streaked bass, (Perca nobilis vel Mitchellii), by Mr. W. 

 Clay Wallace, surgeon to the New York institution for the blind. This 

 gentleman did me the favour to send me over, about twelve months since, 

 his paper published in that journal. From the circumstance of my not 

 being aware of being personally acquainted with Mr. Wallace, I cannot 

 help suspecting that he is one of the Americans to whom the observations 

 made by me, were imparted at the ophthalmic hospital, some years ago." — 

 Mr. Wallace, by omitting in his reply the first part of the above paragraph, 

 ingeniously makes it appear that the only foundation for Mr. Dalrymple's 

 very natural supposition, was the publication of the original description in 

 an American Journal ; whereas it rested solely upon the circumstance of a 

 copy of the paper in question being sent to him by a party to whom he was 

 a perfect stranger.] — Ed. 



