April 3, 1890] 



NATURE 



507 



with its lower rungs wanting. How far managers will 

 take advantage of their powers remain to be seen. The 

 changes which are compulsory, such as that which makes 

 drawing universal for boys' schools, will, of course, take 

 effect widely at once. Those which are merely per- 

 missive may be slow in their operation. Meanwhile, 

 those who are in earnest about the introduction of such 

 subjects as manual training into elementary schools 

 could not better occupy the time which intervenes before 

 the new Code comes into force, at the end of August 

 next, than in perfecting a graduated scheme of instruction 

 such as may be confiden;ly recommended to school 

 managers to submit to the Education Department. 



We have laid stress in this article on the proposed 

 changes in the elementary school curriculum, because, 

 important as these are, they are likely to be overshadowed 

 in the coming discussions on the Code by other questions 

 which appeal more directly to party politicians. We 

 have thus left ourselves no room to do more than allude 

 to other reforms which will affect as powerfully the 

 educational character of our schools as the widening of 

 the course of study. After all, the main guarantee of 

 efficiency is the quality of the teaching staff. The 

 new Code raises the requirements of the Department 

 as to minimum staff, improves the regulations regarding 

 the examination and training of pupil teachers, and pro- 

 vides for the creation (on a very limited scale it is true) 

 of day Training Colleges attached to the Universities or 

 Higher Local Colleges, as well as for the attendance of 

 day students at the existing Training Colleges. The Code 

 further revises the system under which the Parliamentary 

 grant is paid, and almost entirely abolishes payment on 

 results of individual examination. It gives freedom to 

 teachers to classify their scholars as they please, so that 

 a child may be in three different standards in the three 

 R's, and in two different standards again in the two class 

 subjects. All these and other changes, which demand 

 much more notice than we can give them, make the 

 Minute of the Department which has just seen the light 

 emphatically a " Teachers' Code." 



THE CAVE FAUNA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



The Cave Fauna of North America, with Remarks on 

 the Anatomy of the Bi'ain and Origin of the Blind 

 Species. By A. S. Packard. Pp. 1-156, with 27 

 Plates. 

 "■ I ^HIS important memoir is the first of vol. iv. of the 

 -»- " Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences," 

 and contains the results of an examination of the Mam- 

 moth Caves in Kentucky made during the months of April 

 and May 1874, and of some other caves in Indiana and 

 Virginia which were visited by the author at a later date. 

 A description of eighteen caves, with notes on their 

 hydrography and geological age, and an account of the 

 fauna of those which are better known, form the first 

 section of the memoir. The caves form the natural drains 

 of the country, all the surface drainage being at once 

 carried down into them through the innumerable " sink- 

 holes" which pierce the thin stratum overlying the Car- 

 boniferous Limestone, in which the caves are excavated. 

 The Mammoth Cave is the largest and best known, with 



its 150 miles of passages and avenues, frequently crossing 

 one another at different levels. 



Their geological age is uncertain, but there is very 

 little doubt but that they assumed their present propor- 

 tions long after the melting of the glacial ice and are 

 coaeval with the Niagara river-gorge. And as the caves 

 must have been incapable of supporting life while flooded, 

 their preglacial fauna-, if they had one, must have been 

 killed off, and they could not have become ready for their 

 present fauna until comparatively recent times ; therefore, 

 they must have been colonized by members of the existing 

 fauna. The mode of colonization is very simple. : Tracks 

 of bears, wolves, and smaller animals occur in nearly all 

 those caves which are easily accessible from without, and 

 clinging to the skins of these animals various small Arthro- 

 pods may have been carried in ; other species of insects 

 and Myriopods which naturally lead a subterranean life 

 may voluntarily enter the fissures and sink-holes which 

 abound in this region ; others, again, get carried in by the 

 agency of torrents which flow in during certain seasons 

 of the year, as, for instance, the eyed fishes and species 

 of Crustacea which abound in the surface waters. 



That cave animals have entered the caves from without 

 is further corroborated by the fact that in the case of very 

 many cave species closely allied outdoor species are 

 found in great numbers in the immediate vicinity of the 

 caves. Also caves situated near one another are popu- 

 lated by a similar fauna, which allows us to classify them 

 in groups closely corresponding to the various zoo-geo- 

 graphical regions of the country. 



The author then proceeds to the systematic detailed 

 description of the fauna, a section which constitutes 

 more than one-third of the memoir. As in the case of 

 the fauna of the outside world, the species of Arthropoda 

 form a very large percentage of the total number of cave 

 species ; but, however different the groups to which the 

 various species belong may be, they possess the common 

 characteristics of slenderness of body and appendages 

 and of the absence of functional eyes. The systematic 

 description is followed by lists of all the North American 

 and European cave species known at present, showing 

 that the European species are by far the most numerous. 

 It is therefore argued that the European caves have been 

 inhabited for a longer period than the American. 



Although the animal kingdom, at any rate as far as 

 certain groups are concerned, is comparatively well re- 

 presented, vegetable life is almost absent, evidently owing 

 to the dryness and the absence of light ; in fact, so far as 

 is known at present, it is only represented by a few Fungi 

 and two or three Moulds. The air must also be com- 

 paratively free from the germs of bacteria of putrefac- 

 tion, as the decay of organic refuse is very slow, and meat 

 hung up in the cave will keep a long time. But though 

 bacteria are absent, their office is performed by larvae of 

 the blind beetle (Adelops hirtus) and of flies. 



Cave animals are mostly carnivorous. The blind fish 

 {Amblyopsis) lives on Crustacea, and especially on the 

 blind crayfish, which in its turn preys upon living C(cci- 

 dotea, but how they and other small aquatic Crustaceans 

 maintain an existence is unknown. The Myriopods, 

 which are very common, feed on decayed wood and 

 fungous growths. 



However, in all cases, as a rule, food must be very 



