2846 



THE BONY FISHES AND GANOIDS 



Typhlichthys) lack the pelvic pair of fins. All traces of external eyes are wanting, 

 and the skin is totally devoid of color. In order to enable the creature to find its 

 way about in the dark subterranean waters of the limestone rocks of the Central 

 United States, its head is provided with a large supply of organs of touch, arranged 

 in a series of transverse ridges on each side; while its sense of hearing is also stated 

 to be very highly developed. Professor Cope writes that if these fish "Be not 

 alarmed, they come to the surface to feed, and swim in full sight like white aquatic 

 ghosts. They are then easily taken by the hand or net, if perfect silence is pre- 

 served, for they are unconscious of the presence of an enemy except through the 

 medium of hearing. This sense is, however, evidently very acute, for at any noise they 

 turn suddenly downward and hide beneath stones, etc., on the bottom. They must 

 take much of heir food near the surface, as the life of the depths is apparently very 

 sparse. This habit is rendered easy by the structure of the fish, for the mouth is 



KENTUCKY BUNDFISH. 



(Natural size.) 



directed partly upward, and the head is very flat above, thus allowing the mouth 

 to be at the surface. It thus takes food with less difficulty than other surface 

 feeders, as the perch, where the mouth is terminal or even inferior; for these re- 

 quire a definite effort to elevate the mouth to the object floating on the surface." 

 Nearly allied to that variety of the blindfish in which pelvic fins are absent is a 

 small fish known as Chologaster, in which small external eyes are retained, and the 

 body is colored; the front of the head being provided with a pair of horn-like ap- 

 pendages. These small fish were first known from three examples taken in the 

 ditches of the South Carolina rice fields, but a fourth specimen was captured in a 

 well in Tennessee in the year 1854. The retention of the eyes and their dark color 

 itidicates that these fishes have taken to a partially subterranean life more recently 

 than the blindfish. 



THE UMBRES Family 



A small fish from Austria-Hungary known as the umbre {Umbra krameri), to- 

 gether with a second ( U. limi), locally distributed in the fresh waters of the United 



