ANIMALS THAT LIVE IN CAVES. 815 



ANIMALS THAT LIVE IN CAVES. 



By E. a. MAETEL. 



a^HE study of paleontology and prehistoric archaeology and 

 - the exhumation of the life of the past in caverns have been 

 pursued in France during the last twenty years at the expense of 

 the investigation of the present life, while the fauna and flora of 

 their black recesses and dark waters have nevertheless flourished 

 quite as vigorously as in the subsoils of Austria and America. 

 The naturalists of those countries have, however, carried their 

 investigations in that domain considerably further than those of 

 France, Still, numerous cave-dwelling species new to us have 

 been found in the Pyrenees and the south and east of France. 



The zoological study of subterranean waters is eminently use- 

 ful to hygienists, to whom it discloses the presence of noxious 

 organisms capable of developing in the water supplies of cities, 

 and thence finding their way into the human economy. 



Animals of all classes may be found in caverns. Some, which 

 do not pass all their existence there, but seek shelter in them, 

 have been called by the Austrian Schiner troglopliiles (or cave 

 lovers), and others, which never leave their dark abodes, are desig- 

 nated by him as trogJobiens (or cave dwellers). I can not present 

 here even a simple picture of the subterranean fauna actually 

 known ; I can hardly even sketch the outlines of the subject and 

 insist on its importance. 



The higher vertebrates mammals, birds, and reptiles found 

 in caves seem to be chiefly troglophiles. There are, however, real 

 troglobiens among the lower vertebrates batrachians and fishes. 

 The articulates, in particular, and especially the arthropods in- 

 sects, myriapods, arachnids, and crustaceans have revealed many 

 species previously unknown. The Dolichopoda pcdpcda, repre- 

 sented in the figure, was discovered by M. E. Simon, in 1879, in 

 the grottoes of Belves and Espezel, in the Aube. Worms, mol- 

 lusks, etc., are not rare. 



The list of the fauna of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky com- 

 prises no less than a hundred species, without counting those that 

 come in casually from without. Blind spiders set their nets for 

 eyeless flies. Fish eat crawfish, which feed upon smaller crusta- 

 ceans pulled with their pincers from beneath the flat rocks, while 

 the crustaceans prey upon defenseless mollusks, and these forage 

 upon microscopic fungi. 



The important question of the origin of the subterranean fauna 

 is still invested with a degree of mystery. It was at one time be- 

 lieved and maintained by Agassiz that they were specially created 

 for the medium in which they live. It was afterward recognized 



