34 
THE BLIND FISHES OF MAMMOTH CAVE. 
the Cabinet of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, 
under the name of AmMyopsis spelmus.^ DeKay’s description is 
on the whole so characteristic of the fish as to leave no doubt as 
to the species he had before him, though the statement that it has 
eight rays supporting the branchiostegal membrane (instead of 
six), and that the eyes are “large” but under the skin, must have 
been due to the bad condition of his specimen and to his taking 
the fatty layer covering the minute eyes for the eyes themselves, 
as pointed out by Prof. Wyman. Dr. DeKay places the genus with 
the Siluridse (cat fishes) but at the same time questions its con- 
nection with the family and says that it will probably form the 
type of a new family. In 1843 Prof. Jeffries W 3 mian]; gave an 
account of the dissection of a specimen in which he could not find 
a trace of the eye or of the optic nerve, probably owing to the 
condition of the specimen, as he afterwards § found the e}^ spots, 
and made out the structure of the eye. When describing the 
brain. Prof. Wyman calls attention to the fact of the optic lobes 
being as well developed as in allied fishes with well developed eyes, 
and asks if this fact does not indicate that the optic lobes are the 
seat of other functions as well as that of sight. He also calls 
attention to the papillae on the head as tactile organs furnished 
with nerves from the fifth pair. 
Dr. Theo. Tellkampf |1 was the first to point out the existence of 
the rudimentary eyes from dissections made by himself and Prof. 
J. Miiller, and to state that they can be detected in some specimens 
as black spots under the skin by means of a powerful lens. Prof. 
Wyman afterwards detected the eye through the skin in several 
specimens. Dr. Tellkampf also was the first to call attention to 
the “ folds on the head, as undoubtedly serving as organs of touch, 
as numerous fine nerves lead from the trigeminal nerve to them 
and to the skin of the head generally.” 
It is also to Dr. Tellkampf that we are indebted for the first 
figure of the fish,^ and for figures illustrating the brain, and inter- 
nal organs. The descriptions of the anatom}^ of the fish by Drs. 
* Obtuse vision, f Of a cave. 
JSilliman’s Journal, Vol. 45, p. 91. 
§ Proceedings Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. 4, p. 395. 1853. 
II Muller’s Arcliiv. fur Anat., 184t. p. 392. Reprinted in tlie New York Journal of Med- 
icine for July, 1845. p. 84, Avith plate. 
FTlie only other flgures of the species, that I am aware of, are the simple outlines 
given in Poey’s Mem. de Cuba, the woodcut in Wood’s Illustrated Natural History and 
the cut in Tenney’s Zoology. None of these figures are very satisfactory. 
