46 
From the foregoing it is evident that degeneration has not proceeded 
in the reverse order of development; rather the older normal stages of 
ontogenic development have been modified into the more recent phyletic 
stages through which the eye has passed. The adult degenerate eye is 
not an arrested ontogenic stage of development but a new adaptation, and 
there is an attempt in ontogeny to reach the degenerate adult condition 
in the most direct way possible. 
Tue FLorIDA GOPHER. 
By Wo. B. FLETCHER. 
If there is any one animal peculiar to the United States and limited 
in its habits to a very small section, it is the Florida Gopher (Testudo 
Polyphemus (Daudin) Zerobates Carolinus Ag.), which is found in all the 
pine barrens and sandy uplands of Florida, and, but rarely, in parts 
of Alabama and Georgia; never north of the Savannah River. 
The word gopher comes from the old French, and means to honey- 
comb, make numerous holes or burrow, and by the early French settlers 
was indiscriminately employed to designate all burrowing animals. To 
nearly all persons living outside of the three States mentioned, the word 
gopher indicates one of the pouched rodents, rats or squirrels which 
burrow in the ground and are found from Illinois west to the Pacific 
coast, and all over the southwestern States. What we call gophers in the 
North are called salamanders in the South. 
Had nature intended to put into any one animal the characteristics of 
all that is harmless, patient, kind and non-resistent, it is found in the 
gopher. Possessing greater strength in proportion to its size than any of 
the vertebrata, yet it never attacks other animals or defends itself from 
them except by withdrawing its head and legs within the protection of its 
shell; the horny fore-arms and hands, as it were, placed over the head 
and face, making a complete armor against the foe, no matter how sharp 
the teeth or claw may be, or how powerful the jaw of the attacking 
animal. 
The habits of the gopher are those of peace and quietude, except in 
the rare instances of personal contests with its kind. While it is true 
