186 
observed, in the dusk of a summer’s evening, paddling in the 
water towards a small desert island in the Loch of Clunie, which 
it had nearly reached when secured. This island was a hundred 
and eighty yards from the nearest land, and surrounded on all 
sides by deep water. A few moies had been noticed on the 
island in previous y.ears, which must have migrated, and crossed 
the water in like manner, to take possession of it.* 
In addition to the above cases of blind animals, mention 
may be made of some curious little coleopterous insects, 
quite blind, found in ant’s nests, where entomologists often go 
to seek them. What they do there, and how they ever got 
there; as also what use they are of to the ants, or the ants 
to them, are questions which I don’t think have ever been 
answered. The ants seem to treat them very kindly and to 
consider them as part of their household—but whether voluntary 
or involuntary prisoners—their blindness is unquestionably due 
to their subterranean captivity over a long succession of past 
generations.+ 
Before proceeding further on the subject of alteration of 
structure and habits in animals, I would briefly advert to certain 
modern views which will help to explain what I have yet to say. 
It is held by nearly all biologists of the present day, that the 
now-existing forms of animal life have mostly been evolved from 
previous forms of a lower grade of organisation ; these earlier 
forms being revealed to us, as survivals, in the several stages of 
development through which the higher forms pass before arriving 
at maturity. These transient states, in a large proportion ef the 
* Linn. Trans., vol. iii., p. 5. 
+ See further on the subject of these insect pets Mr. Romanes’ two 
recent works, Animal Intelligence, p. 83, and Mental Evolution in 
Animals, p. 185. In the former, it is stated on the authority of the 
Rev. Mr. White, “that altogether 40 distinct species of Coleoptera are 
known to inhabit the nests of various species of ants, and to occur 
nowhere else.” 
