BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 231 



TO THE LIBRARY. 



"Reminiscences of Ice Travels," by Captain M'Clintock, R.N., &c; 

 from Rev. Professor Haughton. "Canadian Journal of Industry," 

 jNos. I. to VIII. ; from the Canadian Institute, Toronto. " Transactions 

 of Geological Society of Dublin," complete; from the Society. "Journal 

 of the Royal Dublin Society," Nos. I. to VI. ; from the Society. 



The Rev. Professor Haughton' s paper on " Pleurotomaria" has not 

 been furnished to us in^time for'this Number. — Hon. Secs. D/N.H.S. 



NOTES OF A VISIT TO MITCHELSTOWN CAVES.* BY E. PERCIVAL WRIGHT, 

 A. B., M.R.I. A., DIRECTOR OF THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MUSEUM; HON. 

 SEC. DUBLIN UNIVERSITY ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL ASSOCIATION. 

 WITH SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES ON THE BLIND FAUNA OF EUROPE, BY A. H. 

 HALIDAY, A.M., M.R.I. A., F.L.S., VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE DUBLIN UNI- 

 VERSITY ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL ASSOCIATION. 

 PLATE XVIII. 



In the early part of August, 1857, Mr. Haliday and myself, when re- 

 turning from an entomological tour in the south and south-east of 

 Ireland, paid a short visit to the extensive limestone caverns near 

 Mitchelstown, county of Cork, hoping to find them inhabited by some in- 

 sect life. It is pretty generally known that various living animals have 

 been discovered in the deep recesses of caves, and it is now nearly a 

 century since the Hypochthon {Proteus) anguinus was found in the caves 

 of Carniola, and since that time various insects have been discovered 

 both in European and American caves. A list of the European species, 

 through the kindness of Mr. Haliday, is appended to these Notes. 



The large majority of these animals are found very far in the inte- 

 rior of the caves ; in those of Carniola none were found within two 

 miles from the mouth of the cave, far beyond the confines of light. 

 Under such circumstances eyes would be quite useless to them, and, 

 therefore, we find them absent, the animals being quite blind ; to them 

 the broad daylight acts like another ocean, and they keep themselves 

 shut up in their mountain prisons, towards which the waves of light 

 never roll. Though blind, they would never appear to stumble into this 

 upper world, but, impelled by some controlling sense, they keep them 

 in their native darkness, each cave having its own peculiar species, 

 which, except there be some internal means of communication, never 

 obtrudes itself into even the neighbouring caves. 



This is a deeply interesting fact in connexion with the theory of 

 single centres of creation, as here we have a species, its centre of crea- 



* Read before Section D at the Meeting of the British Association, Dublin, August 26, 

 1857. 



