64 ANGLING. 



SECTION VII. 



Organs of Sight in Fishes. 



EVEN the sense of sight may be supposed to find 

 but feeble exercise in those profounder depths where 

 so many of the inhabitants of ocean dwell, although 

 the largeness of the visual organs, in many species, 

 probably in some measure makes amends for this 

 deficiency of light. But even in those species the 

 eye cannot change its direction ; still less can it 

 alter its focus, so as to accommodate the vision to 

 a varying distance, for the iris neither dilates nor 

 contracts, and no teaching will induce the pupil 

 to do otherwise than remain for ever the same in 

 all degrees of light. No tear moistens the glazed 

 surface, no eyelid clears or protects it, but then 

 we rejoice to think of the perpetuity of Tweed's 

 crystalline flow, how constant and continuous are 

 its gentle murmurs, how free from those dry specks 

 which men call " dust, 1 " 1 and how gently she laves 

 the never-fevered temples of her (tee) total inhabi- 

 tants. Yet the eyes of fishes, though often in 

 themselves beautiful exceedingly, do still, from 

 their want of variableness, exhibit but a dull and 

 feeble representative of that expressive or^an, so 

 full of life and animation in the higher tribes. 



The position, direction, and dimensions of the 

 eyes of fishes, vary greatly. In some they have 

 an upward aspect and are closely set together ; in 

 others they are lateral, and occasionally so wide 



