Zoology. 127 
picture of the great diversity which exists in nature, than if we allow 
enever we attempt to form a correct idea of the manifested relations 
which exist throughout the creation, as to all their different types, from 
the earliest period of the existence of animals up to the present day. 
ae Acassiz. (In reply to a letter of enquiry from the Senior Editor.) == 
ie The blind fish of the Mammoth Cave, ae for the first time pr» 
f: in 1842, in the Zoology of New York, Dr. Dekay, Part 3d, 
eS 187, under the name of “ Amblyopsis spel and referred, wi 
doubt, to the family of ‘ Silurida,” on nee nt of a remote resem- 
blance to my genus Cetopsis. Dr. J. Wyman has published a more 
minute description of it, with very interesting anatomical details, in 
Le vol: xlv, of the American Journal of Science and Aris, 1848, page 94. 
1 es In 1844, Dr. 'Tellkampf published amore extended description, with 
i figures, in “* Miiller’s Archiv,” for 1844, and mentioned several other 
? animals, found also in the cave, among w os ich the most interesting is— 
a Crustacean, which he calls, “ ‘Astacus pellucidus,” already mentioned, 
but not described by Mr. Thompson; President of the Natural History 
Society of Belfast. Both Thompson and Tellkampf speak of eyes, in 
'$ species ; but they are mistaken. I have examined several speci- 
mens, and satisfied myself, that the peduncle of the eye i exists, but 
there are no visible facets at its extremity, as in other ¢ 
r. ‘Thompson mentions farther crickets, allied to * Phalatneonle lon- 
O iders, Dr. Tellkampf, found two eyeless small, white yee 
which he calls * halangodes armata”’ and ** Anthrobia monmouth 
flies, of the genus “ Anthomyia”—a mi shrimp, called By wits 
riura scavernicola,” and two blind ‘beetles—** Anophthalmus Tell- 
kampfii,” of Erichson, and “Adelops hirtus ;”” of most of which Dr. Tell- 
kampf has published a full deseription and mei in a subsequent 
As alrea Dekay 
doubt, to the family of Siluride. Dr. Tellkampf however establishes for 
ita distinct family. Dr. Storer, i in his Synopsis of the fishes of Peehs 
Merica, published in 1846, in the Memoirs of the American Aca 
ears an nd Sci 
ty ask me to give my saree a cea the primitive state of the 
eress animals of the Mammoth Cave. This is one of the most im- 
‘questions to settle in eNaraeal Bi istory, and I have several years 
