34 THE BLIND FISHES OF MAMMOTH CAVE. 



the Cabinet of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, 

 under the name of Amblyopsis * spelceus.^ DeKay's description is 

 on the whole so characteristic of the fish as to leave no doubt as 

 to the species he had before him, though the statement that it has 

 eight rays supporting the branchiostegal membrane (instead of 

 six), and that the eyes are "large" but under the skin, must have 

 been due to the bad condition of his specimen and to his taking 

 the fatty layer covering the minute eyes for the eyes themselves, 

 as pointed out by Prof. Wyman. Dr. DeKay places the genus with 

 the Siluridse (cat fishes) but at "the same time questions its con- 

 nection with the family and says that it will probably form the 

 type of a new family. In 1843 Prof. Jeffries Wyman \ gave an 

 account of the dissection of a specimen in which he could not find 

 a trace of the eye or of the optic nerve, probably owing to the 

 condition of the specimen, as he afterwards found the eye spots, 

 and made out the structure of the eye. When describing the 

 brain, Prof. "Wyman calls attention to the fact of the optic lobes 

 being as well developed as in allied fishes with well developed eyes, 

 and asks if this fact does not indicate that the optic lobes are the 

 seat of other functions as well as that of sight. He also calls 

 attention to the papillae on the head as tactile organs furnished 

 with nerves from the fifth pair. 



Dr. Theo. Tellkampf || was the first to point out the existence of 

 the rudimentary eyes from dissections made by himself and Prof. 

 J. Miiller, and to state that they can be detected in some specimens 

 as black spots under the skin by means of a powerful lens. Prof. 

 Wyman afterwards detected the eye through the skin in several 

 specimens. Dr. Tellkampf also was the first? to call attention to 

 the " folds on the head, as undoubtedly serving as organs of touch, 

 as numerous fine nerves lead from the trigeminal nerve to them 

 and to the skin of the head generally." 



It is also to Dr. Tellkampf that we are indebted for the first 

 figure of the fish,^[ and for figures illustrating the brain, and inter- 

 nal organs. The descriptions of the anatomy of the fish by Drs. 



* Obtuse vision, f Of a cave. 



t Silliman's Journal, Vol. 45, p. 94. 



Proceedings Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. 4, p. 395. 1853. 



|| Miiller's Archiv. fur Anat., 1844. p. 392. Reprinted in the New York Journal of Med- 

 icine for July, 1845. p. 84, with pliito. 



IT The only other figures of the species, that I am aware of, are the simple outlines 

 given in Poey's Mem. de Cuba, the woodcut in Wood's Illustrated Natural History and 

 the cut in Tenney's Zoology. None of these figures are very satisfactory. 



