322 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



THE CAVE FAUNA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



A paper was read at the Hartford meeting of the American 

 Association, by Professor Packard, upon the cave fauna of the 

 United States, which embraced the results of an examination 

 upon which lie has been recently engaged. These exhibit a 

 uniformity in the distribution of cave life throughout the en- 

 tire region of the West much greater than might have been 

 expected. 



Of plant life three forms of low fungoid growths occurred in 

 the Mammoth and other caves on old pieces of stick, but not 

 in sufficient abundance to serve as a basis for the animal life 

 of the caves, which was nearly all carnivorous, except in the 

 case of the poduras and snails, which probably thrived on the 

 decaying fragments of wood artificially introduced into the 

 caves. 



Professor Packard was not able to determine what consti- 

 tuted the food of the most abundant insect of the caves the 

 wingless grasshopper. Of Protozoa, six forms were found in 

 water taken from Willie's Spring, about half a mile from the 

 mouth of Mammoth Cave. Two species of Helix and one of 

 Pupa were seen, although both may have been introduced by 

 man. A Planarian worm was met with about a quarter of 

 an inch lonsr. The common earth-worm occurs in all the 

 caves. Blind craw-fish, spiders, beetles, etc., and fishes were 

 among the animals observed. These researches of Dr. Pack- 

 ard, in addition to those previously detected, bring the num- 

 ber of cave species up to about one hundred. 



FOSSIL VERTEBRATES IN OHIO. 



Ohio has of late years been quite prolific in discoveries of 

 interesting fossil vertebrates, and, among others, those of the 

 mastodon, of which the following are recorded since the com- 

 mencement of the Geological Survey in 1869: the upper jaw 

 and skull, in Pike County ; portions not yet exhumed, near 

 New Holland, Fayette County, found in a marsh, and partly 

 exposed ; two tusks, near Germantown, in Montgomery Coun- 

 ty; a tooth, near Kenton, in Hardin County; almost a com- 

 plete skeleton, in St. Johns; a femur, bones of the feet, and 

 ribs, near Woodstock, Champaign County ; and one reported 

 near Greenville, in Darke County. 



