Zoological, Section, October 12. — First evening 
meptinff of the sesoion ; Mr. A. Leipner presided. It was 
proposed bv Mr. E. A. Praegrer, and resolved, that the 
m«etinf?^ of this section should henceforward take place on 
the second Tharsdav, instead of the firs^ Wednesday, in each 
month. The president, Dr. Henry Fripp, continued bis 
account of the structure of the eye in the cuttlefish, which he 
illustrated with a number of very beautiful microscopic 
preparations. Referring to his former pappr, read in May 
la'st., he pointed out the difference between the collective eye, 
where the visual subject was concentrated atone point, as in 
the eve of all Mammals, and the insect eye, which contained 
a great number of facets, each with its lens, nerve fibre, &c., 
and stated that though they were generally considered to 
differ in absolute speciality, be wished to show that they 
wpre reallv onlv types diverging in detail, and that the 
Cephalopod eve. hitherto little understood, was to be 
regarded as a sort of connecting link between the two. The 
analogv was to be traced through a radiary system or 
arrangement of nerves, which had long been known in the 
insect eye. but onlv recentlv discovered, and even now not 
readilv understood in the bnman eve. In this wonderful 
instrument, the picture formed bv the lenses and humours 
was generallv supposed to be on the retina, but it really was 
on the choroid coat, the ends of the mass of nerve fibres 
forming the retina, turning back at intervals, so that their 
terminations, resembling the pile of velvet, were placed 
radiallv at right angles to the " camera picture" on the 
curved inner surface of the coats of the eye. The fibres 
thus turned back had several rows of ganglia, but, 
eventuallv, towards their termination, became changed from 
nerve fibre to connective tissue, and were hence at first 
supposed to belong to a tactile organ — so closely were the 
senses of sight and touch connected. In the Cephalopod 
eve it was unexplained why the retina was separated from 
the crystalline lens bv a laypr of black pigment, quite 
impervious to light; but Dr. Fripp demonstrated that this 
black pigment contained a radiary arrangement of nerve 
fibres, similar to that existing in the insect eye, which 
connected the posterior and anterior retinae, and through 
which the visual sensation, caused by the picture thrown by 
the single lens upon the membrane immediately in front of 
the pigment, passed, and excited a corresponding impression 
on the retinal expansion of the optic nerve. 
F. ASHMEAD, 
T. H. YABBICOM, | 
G. HARDING, Junr., 
A. NOBLE, ' 
S. H. SWAYNE, 
Sectional Secretaries. 
WM. LANT CARPENTER, 
Hon. Reporting Secretary, 
