286 
What ! South America with its cordillera, and weeping Southern 
Archipelago, under similar physical conditions with arid South 
Africa ? Even the unassisted eye can see that this is not so. But 
Mr Darwin chooses a test by which I am willing to abide (and which 
I had indeed selected for the same purpose in a paper I read on the 
Disguises of Nature at the meeting of the British Association at 
Aberdeen). It is the blind cave animals found in the limestone 
caverns both in Europe and America. Mr Darwin says, It is diffi- 
cult to imagine conditions of life more similar than deep limestone 
caverns under a nearly similar climate ; so that on the common view 
of the blind animals having been separately created for the Ameri- 
can and European caverns, close similarity in the organisation and 
affinities might have been expected ; but as Schiodte and others have 
remarked, this is not the case, and the cave insects* of the two conti- 
nents are not more closely allied than might have been anticipated 
from the general resemblance of the other inhabitants of North 
America and Europe.” Now Mr Darwin, in this passage, has quite 
mistaken the gist of Schiodte’s remark, and consequently misapplied 
it. It is quite correct for him to say that we should expect close 
similarity in the caves in question, but it is incorrect to say that 
44 this is not the case;” for the similarity in some is marvellously 
close ; and it is also incorrect to say that Schiodte and others have 
remarked that 44 this is not the case.” As to the 44 others,” indeed, I 
cannot speak, for I do not know to whom he refers, and I do not know 
any other author than Schiodte except Muller, who has written, from 
original observation, otherwise than incidentally upon the subject ; but 
neither he nor Schiodte make any such remark. I presume the others 
alluded to by Mr Darwin are those who have followed Schiodte, and 
adopted or quoted his remark. The remark which he makes, and Mr 
Darwin has misapplied, is, 44 that the cave insects of the two continents 
are not more closely allied than might have been anticipated from 
the general resemblance of the other inhabitants of North America 
and Europe — a loose general remark, which, like an ancient oracle, 
* Although Mr Darwin here uses the observations of Schiodte upon blind 
insects as an illustration, his remarks (as he himself has had the kindness to 
inform me) are not meant to be confined to them, but also to be applied to the 
whole of the animals found in caves. But as his theory, if true, should meet 
every case, a clear flaw in even one would be fatal to the whole, and I would 
have tested it with these insects, whether they had been referred to by Mr 
Darwin himself or not. 
