THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 77 



BOOK NOTICES. 



The Cave Fauna of North America, with remarks on the Anatomy 

 of the Brain and Origin of the Blind Species. By A. S. Packard, 

 M. D. Vol. IV : First Memoir — National Academy of Sciences. 

 4 to., pp. Ts6. 



The author of this admirable volume is everywhere known throughout 

 the scientific world from his numerous works, especially on Entomology, 

 and has obtained a deservedly high reputation in Europe as well as in 

 America. This reputation will, we are confident, be, if possible, enhanced 

 by the elaborate monograph before us. It contains many original 

 observations of cave animals, some careful scientific investigations, and 

 a very interesting chapter of philosophic considerations. It is also fully 

 illustrated by a map of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, a number of 

 wood cuts and a series of twenty-seven beautiful lithographs, nearly all of 

 them drawn by the author himself. The work begins with a description 

 of the Mammoth Cave and others in the neighbourhood, and gives lists 

 of the various animals found within them ; an account of the Wyandotte 

 and other caves in Indiana, Clinton's Cave in Utah, and one in Colorado; 

 a discussion of the geological age of the caves and their inhabitants, the 

 mode of colonization and the source of their food-supply. The second 

 chapter describes the vegetable life of the caves, which is naturally of the 

 most meagre description. Then follows a systematic description and 

 list of the invertebrate animals found in North American caves, among 

 which spiders are the most numerous. Insects are represented by eight 

 species of Thysanura, four of Orthoptera, two of Platyptera, ten of 

 Coleoptera and nine of Diptera — a by no means extensive list, but one 

 that includes some very curious and interesting forms. The beetles of 

 the genus Anophthalmus are especially remarkable and attractive to the 

 ordinary entomologist. Lists are also given of the European and North 

 American cave animals, and of the blind, eyeless creatures which do not 

 live in caves, and which, strange to say, almost equal in number their 

 cavernous relatives. The next chapter gives a careful account of the 

 anatomy of the brain and eyes (when partly developed) of certain blind 

 Arthropods. The chief interest of the work culminates in the final 

 chapter where the author discusses the origin of the cave species as bear- 

 ing upon the theory of evolution. We have not space for any abstract 

 -of his views, which are well-deserving of study, but must refer the reader 

 who desires fresh evidence on the subject of evolution to the work itself. . 



