AMERICAN NATURALIST. 



Vol. xvi. — JANUARY, 1882. — No. 1. 

 THE BLIND CAVE FISHES AND THEIR ALLIES. 



A N unusual interest attaches to everything relating to the blind 

 •**- fishes of the caves, partly because of their peculiar depriva- 

 tion and the compensation for it afforded by the development of 

 special sensory structures more useful to them in their subterran- 

 ean situation than eyes would be, and partly because the origin of 

 their peculiarities has proved an inviting subject of speculation 

 and discussion with reference to the doctrine of natural selection. 

 In the careful papers of Mr. F. W. Putnam, 1 especially, we find 

 accurate descriptions of the genera and species, and a clear state- 

 ment of opposing views respecting the derivation of these little 

 fishes. 



. A strict evolutionist passes, perhaps too easily, from the idea 

 of the unbroken, rayless night in which the blind fishes live and 

 seem to have lived for ages, to that of their atrophied eyes and 

 highly developed epidermal organs of sense— connecting these at 

 once as cause and effect on the strength of his general theory. In 

 papers written, one nine and the other seven years ago, Mr. ^Put- 

 nam presented, partly in criticism of previously published ex- 

 planations of Mr. Cope,- facts and considerations which seemed to 

 him to break the force of the argument based by evolutionists upon 

 the peculiar adaptation of the blind fishes to their surroundings, 

 and even to compel the conclusion that the darkness of their situ- 



