70 Darwin, and after Darwin. 
these no less than 23 have a// their species in this 
condition. 
Similar facts have been recently observed by the 
Rev. A. E. Eaton with respect to insects inhabiting 
Kerguelen Island. All the species which he found 
on the island—viz. a moth, several flies, and numerous 
beetles—he found to be incapable of flight; and 
therefore as Wallace observes, “as these insects could 
hardly have reached the islands in a wingless state, 
even if there were any other known land inhabited by 
them, which there is not, we must assume that, like 
the Madeiran insects, they were originally winged, 
and lost their power of flight because its possession 
was injurious to them ”——Kerguelen Island being “ one 
of the stormiest places on the globe,’ and therefore a 
place where insects could rarely afford to fly without 
incurring the danger of being blown out to sea. 
Here is another and perhaps an even more suggestive 
class of facts. 
It is now many years ago since the editors of 
Silliman’s Fournal requested the late Professor Agassiz 
to give them his opinion on the following question. 
In a certain dark subterranean cave, called the 
Mammoth cave, there are found some peculiar species 
of blind fishes. Now the editors of Si/diman’s Fourial 
wished to know whether Prof. Agassiz would hold 
that these fish had been specially created in these 
caves, and purpos¢cly devoided of eyes which could 
never be of any use to them; or whether he would 
allow that these fish had probably descended from 
other species, but, having got into the dark cave, 
gradually lost their eyes through disuse. Prof. 
Agassiz, who was a believer in special creation, 
