Cover legend: Illustration of a cross section of the mammalian retina with ganglion cells at the top and rod outer segments at the bottom. Highlighted is the circuitry onto a single ganglion cell, where convergence, amplification, and saturation influence gain controls are located within the retinal network. Depicted in the details is the rod bipolar pathway specified for carrying rod signals in the mammalian retina: rod→ rod bipolar→ AII amacrine→ cone bipolar→ ganglion cell. We studied this pathway to find that a key site of gain control at the lowest mean light levels is at the rod bipolar-to-AII amacrine synapse, and at brighter light levels gain controls at earlier sites take over. (Media: water color, pencil, Photoshop by F. A. Dunn with help by Paul Newman.) For details, see the article by Dunn et al. in this issue (pages 3959–3970).