BLIND ANIMALS 165 



living in the vicinity of the cave. Nevertheless he claimed 

 for the blind fishes and some of the invertebrates a different 

 origin, because the former had no immediate relations among 

 fresh-water forms, while the lernean fish parasite was a 

 more decidedly marine than fresh-water form. He took these 

 facts to indicate that part of the great cave system was 

 supplied by maorine life. 



Professor Packard * makes no allusion to Mr. Putnam's 

 view in his account of the origin of the subterranean fauna 

 of North America. Mr. Putnam's theory indeed appears to 

 be scarcely tenable. His remark that the blind fishes of the 

 Mammoth and other caves have no immediate relations among 

 fresh-water forms has to be modified in accordance with our 

 existing knowledge of fishes. The blind fishes, all of which 

 belong to the family Amblyopsidae, are no doubt a very 

 ancient group, and, as Drs. Jordan and Evermannf suggest 

 they are probably descendants of the eyed genus Chologaster, 

 or at least forms very closely allied to it. Now one species 

 of Chologaster inhabits swampy marshes in the southern 

 States, and two others live in the subterranean streams of 

 Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois. The most typical blind 

 fishes, Typhlichthys subterraneus and Amblyopsis spelaeus, 

 are met with in the underground streams of Indiana and 

 Kentucky. 



Professor GarmanJ expressed the opinion that the blind 

 species observed in the caves were already blind prior to the 

 formation of the caves, and that they only collected there 

 from various directions owing to the favourable conditions 

 for their requirements. Whether this theory is based on sound 

 evidence need not be discussed, but his statement that 

 Typhlichthys subterraneus has a very wide range has been 

 questioned by Professor Eigenmann,§ who showed that the 

 apparently identical species from Missouri is really quite 

 distinct from that of the Mammoth Cave. Professor Eigen- 

 mann points out that we have to deal with a remarkable and 



* Packard, A. S., " Origin of subterranean fauna." 

 t Jordan, D. S., and B. W. Evermann, " Fishes of North America," 

 Vol. L, p. 702. 

 t Garman, H., " Origin of Cave Fauna," pp. 240—241. 

 § Eigenmann, 0. H., "A Case of Convergence," p. 281. 



