Miscellaneous, 369 



but most of them were, like those of our present rivers, deep-water 

 or bottom feeders. Such fishes would starve in a cave-river, where 

 much of the food is carried to them on the surface of the stream. 

 The Amblyopsis belongs, with two other genera of imperfect seers, 

 to the family Hypsceidce, which, with the pike, shore -minnow, and 

 mudfish families, form the order of Haplomi. The shore-minnows 

 {Gijprinodontidce) are their nearest allies, and many of them have 

 the upturned mouth and flat head of the blindfish. One of them 

 {Anahleps) has the special peculiarity of seeing both in the water 

 and above it, — the eye being enlarged ; and a dermal band crossing 

 the cornea, divides it into an upper and a lower portion. This 

 band is the " water-line ;" for the fish swims at the surface. Fishes 

 of this or a similar family, enclosed in subterranean waters ages 

 ago, would be more Hkely to Mve than those of the other ; and the 

 darkness would be very apt to be the cause of the atrophy of the 

 organs of sight seen in the Amhlyopsis. 



Of the other animals, one beetle (Anophthalmus), the cricket 

 (JPhalangopsis), a fly, the Opilio-Yike spider, the centipede, and the 

 blind crawfish are probably the same as those found in the Mam- 

 moth Cave. Two beetles and two crustaceans are certainly diff"erent 

 from those of the latter, and the centipedes are much more 

 numerous. The Gammaroid crustacean which we found in the 

 waters of the Mammoth Cave, and which is, no doubt in part, the 

 food of the blind fish, we did not find ; but some such species no 

 doubt exists, as we found an abundance of a lively little tetrade- 

 capod crustacean near the mouth of a cave close by. This little 

 creature no doubt inhabits adjacent waters both external and sub- 

 terranean ; but the situation in which we found it is peculiar. It 

 was only seen in water, and near an empty log trough used to col- 

 lect water from a spring dripping from the roof of one of the 

 chambers. 



The Lernaean is a still more remarkable creature. It is a para- 

 site on the blind fish, precisely as numerous species near of kin 

 attach themselves to various species of marine fishes in the salt 

 sea. The Wyandotte species is not so very unlike some of these. 

 It is attached by a pair of altered fore limbs, which are plunged 

 into the skin of the host, and held securely in that position by the 

 barbed or recurved claws. The position selected by the blind-fish 

 Lernaean, was the inner edge of the upper lip, where she hung in 

 a position provocative of attempts at mastication on the part of the 

 fish, and reminding one of the picture of the man on the ass's back 

 holding a fork of fodder before the animal's nose, in illustration of 

 the motto that " persuasion is better than force." The little crea- 

 ture had an egg-pouch suspended on each side, and was no doubt 

 often brought into contact with the air by her host. 



The mutual relations of this cave life form an interesting subject. 

 In the first place, two of the beetles, the crickets, the centipede, the 

 Gammaroid crustacean (food of the blind fish) are more or less her- 

 bivorous ; they furnish food for the spiders, crawfish, Anophthalmus, 

 and the fish. The vegetable food supporting them is in the first 



Ann.&Mag.N.Eist. ^&rA. Vol.Vnu 28 



