TEE CONDITIONS OF LIFE IN ANIMATED BEINGS. 



425 



taken except in subterranean waters, and it is 

 now always easily found in the grotto of Adels- 

 bcrg, situated on the road from Vienna to Trieste. 

 Here, then, is a speeies of a peculiar kind, very 

 distinct from all others existing in Europe, and 

 living in an habitual way in darkness. In Ken- 

 tucky, in the United States, there is a deep cav- 

 ern, the Mammoth Cave, abundantly supplied 

 with water. No light penetrates it ; the darkness 

 is utter. A fish inhabits the water of the cavern, 

 in which necessarily other animals live, and vege- 

 tables to give them nourishment. The fish is 

 whitish, without scales, of a kind that has never 

 been found elsewhere, and entirely blind ; its 

 eyes, in the rudimentary state, and hidden under 

 the skin, are quite useless ; its apparatus of hear- 

 ing, on the contrary, is well developed. This 

 Kentucky fish has been named the " cave ambly- 

 opsis, the generic name referring to the animal's 

 blindness. The amblyopsis presents in its gen- 

 eral conformation characters so peculiar that the 

 authors who have studied it best have not been 

 able to refer it with certainty to any of the known 

 animals of the class of fishes. Some zoologists, 

 perhaps rightly, see in it the type of a new fam- 

 ily. Louis Agassiz, an authoritative judge upon 

 the question, maintaining extreme caution, only 

 declares that he inclines to consider it an aber- 

 rant form of the family of cyprinodontes. The 

 habitation of the amblyopsis is extraordinary, 

 and its characteristics are not less peculiar. 

 Among all the fishes there is neither species, nor 

 genus, nor even family, in which a true relation- 

 ship can be found for it. In view of these facts, 

 it would be difficult to maintain that the fish of 

 the Mammoth Cave was not created to live in 

 the unique condition in which it has been found 

 by naturalists. 



At a not very remote period an entomologist 

 of Germany undertook a careful exploration of 

 the grottoes of Carniola, and discovered in them 

 certain blind coleoptera, very active, quite color- 

 less, wan, almost transparent, having a size of 

 from two to three inches in length, and remark- 

 ably elegant proportions. These insects did not 

 closely resemble any known form ; they were de- 

 scribed under the name of "anophthalms," to 

 express their most striking mark, the want of 

 eyes. The fact long continued an isolated one, 

 but within a few years examinations actively car- 

 ried on in the grottoes of the Ariege, the Pyre- 

 nees, and different parts of Europe and North 

 America, have resulted in the discovery of many 

 distinct species belonging to the same genus. 

 The hunt for these anophthalms would not be a 



pleasant one for everybody. Fortunately, en- 

 tomologists are people determined to brave diffi- 

 cult situations and suffer many inconveniences to 

 attain their object. They enter these caverns 

 with torches, and advance slipping over the 

 rough, wet floor, striking against rocks, and 

 wounding themselves on jagged points. Near 

 the entrance of a cavern, where the darkness is 

 not yet complete, a kind of anophthalm is some- 

 times found, which has imperfect eyes, but it is 

 necessary to go still farther to find those lively 

 blind coleoptera they are in search of. Almost 

 always the seeker finds these insects over a rather 

 limited space, running along the walls of the 

 cave or hidden under the stones. At present the 

 known anophthalms are numerous, and — a fact 

 worthy of remark — each species seems limited 

 to a single cave, or to a few caves only a little 

 distance apart. If the seekers of blind insects 

 were merely animated by the wish to take strange 

 species and adorn their collections with them, 

 they have none the less done science a useful 

 service by gathering materials that lead to reflec- 

 tions on the conditions of existence in some be- 

 ings. In their zoological marks the anophthalms 

 have close relations to the coleoptera of the same 

 family that live in the light ; but they have forms 

 and proportions so peculiarly their own that the 

 idea of a common origin could not enter the 

 mind of any naturalist. The species observed 

 in different caves and under similar conditions 

 are perfectly distinct, and when we find in the 

 greater part of them complete atrophy, not mere- 

 ly of the eyes but also of the optic nerves, it is 

 hard to believe in anything else than an adapta- 

 tion of the organism to a special kind of life. 



Besides, in the darkness of caverns and deep 

 grottoes there are animals of more than one kind ; 

 we find there small crawfish, small spiders, in- 

 sects of different kinds, all wanting the organs 

 of sight. There are in those gloomy recesses 

 vegetable-eating species, serving in a certain de- 

 gree for food to the carnivora ; and vegetables, 

 some kinds of mushrooms, the only known plants 

 susceptible of growth in the absence of light, de- 

 signed to feed such species ; it is a complete lit- 

 tle world set apart from the rest of the world. 

 The broken chasms of a grotto, besides being 

 the most picturesque retreat, are the abode of 

 numberless creatures that pursue, retreat, de- 

 stroy, and move, in a constant whirl. 



Who could resist the temptation of seeking 

 to ascend in thought toward the origin of these 

 sightless creatures, to whom existence seems so 

 wretched ? Agassiz was asked to give his opinion 



