BLIND FAUNA OF CAVERNS. 81 



in the length of the antennae or palpi, as a compensation 

 for blindness. 



" . . . . Far from feeling any surprise that some of the 

 cave-animals should be very anomalous, as Agassiz has 

 remarked in regard to the blind fish, the Amhlyopsis, and 

 as is the case with the blind Proteus with reference to the 

 reptiles of Euroj^e, I am only surprised that more wrecks 

 of ancient life have not been preserved, owing to the less 

 severe competition to which the inhabitants of these dark 

 abodes will probably have been exposed."* 



Lone and barren rocks rising abruptly out of the soli- 

 tary ocean often teem with animal life to an amazing 

 extent, where the navigator might reasonably have looked 

 for utter silence and desolation. For these are the resort 

 of millions of oceanic birds, affording to these, whose 

 proper home is on the wide and shoreless sea, the spots of 

 solid matter which they require for the laying of their 

 eggs and the hatching of their young. This brief occu- 

 pation, lasting only for a few weeks in the year, appears 

 to be the only link which connects these pelagic free- 

 booters with the earth. Pelicans, gannets, boobies, cor- 

 morants, frigate-birds, tropic-birds, albatrosses, fulmars, 

 skuas, petrels, gulls, terns, puffins, and multitudes of other 

 tribes throng; to such bare rocks in the season, in count- 

 less hosts, making ' the desolation horridly alive. Such a 



* Op. cit., p. 137. I am very far, indeed, from accepting Mr Dar- 

 win's theory to the extent to which he pushes it, completely tram- 

 pling on Kevelation as it does ; but I think there is a measure of truth 

 in it. 



F 



