36 FISHES WITH EYES ALSO IN THE CAVE. 



Prof. Agassiz in 1851* stated that the blind fish was an aber- 

 rant form of the Cyprinodontes. 



Thus all those authors who have expressed an opinion as to the 

 position which the fish should hold in the natural system have 

 come to the same conclusions as to the great group, division, or 

 order, into which it should be placed. For all the terms used 

 above, when reduced to any one system, bring Amblyopsis into 

 the same general position in the S3^stem ; its nearest allies be- 

 ing the minnows, pickerels, shiners and herrings ; and unless a 

 careful study of its skeleton should prove to the contrary, we 

 must, from present data, consider the family containing Amblyop- 

 sis as more nearly allied to the Cyprinodontes, or our common 

 minnows having teeth on the jaws, than to any other family, differ- 

 ing from them principally by the structure of the several parts of 

 the alimentary canal and the forward position of its termination. 



I have thus far mentioned only one species of blind fish from 

 the cave, the Amblyopsis spelceus. The waters of the cave not only 

 contain another species of blind fish, differing from Amblyopsis in 

 several particulars, especially by its smaller size and by being with- 

 out ventral fins, which I have identified as the Typliliclithys subter- 

 raneus of Dr. Girard ; but also a fish with well developed eyes, 

 as proved by the account given by Dr. Tellkampf and by the 

 drawing of a fish found by Prof. Wyman, in 1856, in the stomach 

 of an Amblyopsis he was dissecting. In order to call attention to 

 the fact that fishes with eyes are at times, if not always, in the 

 waters of the cave, I have reproduced the drawing by Prof. Wy- 

 man on plate 1, fig. 13. It is very much to be regretted that the 

 specimen is not now to be found, and that it was so much acted 

 on by the gastric juice as to destroy all external characters by 

 which it could be identified from the drawing, which is of about 

 natural size. Dr. Tellkampf's remarks on the fish with eyes are 

 as follows : 



" Besides the colorless blind-fish, there are also others found in 

 the cave, which are black, commonly known by the name of 'mud- 

 fish.' I saw a dark-colored fish in the water, but did not succeed 

 in catching it. The latter are said to have eyes, and are entirely 

 dissimilar to the blind-fish." 



The name "mud-fish," given to this fish with eyes, and the state- 

 ment that it is of a dark color, together with the drawing by Prof. 



*SUliman's Journal, p. 128. 



