195 



tact with salt water, the supposed erosion of the lime- 

 stone and the modification of the early formed chambers 

 by later action should be carefully considered before it 

 can be denied that the caves were not, in some slight part, 

 for a time, supplied with marine life. Until a specimen 

 of Chologaster, or some other member of the family, has 

 been obtained in the external waters of the Ohio valley, 

 it is hardly logical to regard the family to which the 

 blind fishes belong as one originally distributed in the 

 rivers of the Ohio valley, and afterwards becoming exter- 

 minated in the rivers and only existing in two such widely 

 different localities as the coast of South Carolina and the 

 subterranean streams of the southwestern states. That 

 marine forms of life are found in our fresh water lakes 

 and rivers is known to be the case. The specimen of a 

 shrimp exhibited was secured in the Green River near one 

 of the outlets of the Mammoth Cave. The fact that in 

 some of the waters of Florida fishes once marine are now 

 confined to the fresh water lakes of comparatively recent 

 formation, and that in the St. John's River, and others of 

 that state, many marine and fresh water species are found 

 associated, are evidence of the change that may take place 

 in the habits of some marine animals, while a recent 

 announcement of the Gobiosoma found in the Ohio River * 

 is another instance of a marine fish living in fresh waters. 



Living specimens of both species of blind fishes (Am- 

 blyopsis spelceus and Typhlichthys subterraneus) were ex- 

 hibited, and with them specimens of a fish never before 

 collected in the waters of Mammoth Cave. 



This last proves to be the Chologaster Agassizii de- 

 scribed f from a young specimen obtained from a well in 



* PUTNAM, notice of Gobiosoma molestum from the Ohio. Am. Nat., viii, Feb., 

 1874. 



t See PUTNAM, Amer. Nat., vi, p. 22, figs., Jan., 1872 : Report Peabody Acad. Sci., 

 1871. Both articles are reproduced in " Life in Mam. Cave," 1872. 



