180 On the Structure of the Iris of the Eye of Fishes. 



year at the Eoyal Academy up to some ten years ago. This is 

 one of the most adequate examples of his elaborate style in- 

 cluded in the present exhibition ; we should have expected to 

 find a fuller representation of so admired a miniaturist. 



"Alice," by Wells, is an excellent miniature, showing 

 the best attainment of the modern school; not unlike the 

 works of Eoss, but with greater force. 



With this example we bid adieu to the exhibition ; only 

 regretting that we have been compelled to mention much fewer 

 works, and those much more summarily, than the number, 

 importance, and interest of the specimens displayed would 

 demand. Our limits of space have compelled us to omit several 

 Barnes of sitters no less distinguished than Queen Henrietta 

 Maria, Strafford, Hampden, Algernon Sidney, Henri IV., 

 Sully, Conde, Turenne, Charles XII., Peter the Great, Maria 

 Theresa, Frederick the Great, Lafayette, Talleyrand, Nelson, 

 Marlborough, the elder Pitt, Clive, Warren Hastings, Washing- 

 ton, Montaigne, Lope de Vega, Ben Jonson, Milton, Corneille, 

 Moliere, Dryden, Newton, Pope, Swift, Voltaire, Kant, Scott, 

 Byron, Eaphael, Eubens, Wren, Handel, Eeynolds, Flaxuian, 

 Wilkie, and Napoleon III. 



EEMAEKS ON THE STEUCTUEE AND ACTIONS OF 

 THE IEIS OF THE EYE IN SOME SPECIES 



OF FISHES. 



BY JONATHAN COUCH, F.L.S., ETC. 



The eyes of fishes differ in a remarkable degree from those 

 of quadrupeds, birds, and reptiles, and especially in the want 

 of a power by which the amount of light to be admitted may 

 be regulated ; and in consequence of what has been noticed 

 of this, that portion of the eye of this class of animals which 

 is termed the Iris has from the earliest times been considered 

 as merely an immovable curtain or diaphragm, altogether in- 

 capable of contraction or dilation. In the second volume of 

 Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, new series, Mr. Dal- 

 rymple remarks that he was never able to discover the slightest 

 movement in this portion of the eye, and after many attentive 

 observations on the cod family, the gurnards, and several 

 others, I have arrived at the same conclusion. As regards the 

 smooth blonny, or shanny, in particular, they have been sub- 

 jected to the inquiry when at liberty in their native pools, 

 where they were enticed by baits placed at different distances, 

 to which they are never indifferent; but while looking at these 



