26 
MEMOIRS OP THE RATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
growing from tlie liiud body of a cave cricket (Hadenoecus subterraneus). A young Peziza (identi¬ 
fied by Professor Farlow) occurred in Weyer’s Cave; it was not in fruit, was colorless, and im¬ 
possible to determine specifically. A colorless agaric also occurred in Weyer’s Cave. 
Mr. Hovey notices the occurrence of agarics in River Hall, Mammoth Cave: “ In 1881 we found 
a natural bed of mushrooms growing here, a species of Agaricus.” 
Mr. Hovey discovered two species of fungi in Luray Cave; one was a long white mold hanging 
in festoons, the other supposed to be a new species which he described under the name of Mucor 
stalactitis in the Scientific American for March, 1879. 
Washington’s Hall is a chamber of the largest size, and for many years the lunching place 
of tourists. “The floor of the hall is of white gypsum sand strewed with fragments of the same 
material. The larger masses of gypsum afford convenient seats and tables for picnickers, and are 
strewn about with chicken bones and bits of food. The accumulation of such rejectamenta is very 
great, to be reckoned perhaps by the cart-load; yet, notwithstanding the presence of so much offal, 
kept perpetually moist by contact with the gypsum sand, not the slightest taint is perceptible in 
the air of the chamber; only at close quarters the recently-deposited morsels give off a peculiarly 
rancid odor. As before, in the Rotunda, I was struck with the conviction that decay in the cave 
is an exceedingly slow process, accomplished mainly through the agency of a few fungi. * Professor 
Tyndall has shown that in the pure atmosphere of the Alps perishable infusions of meat and 
vegetables remain unchanged for an indefinite length of time, t May it not be that the equally 
pure and bracing air of these caverns is likewise comparatively free fom the germs of Bacteria, 
Vibrios, and other agents of putrefaction and fermentation ? It has been asserted by the guides 
that meat hung up “at the mouth of the cave” will keep fresh a long time. f But if Bacteria are 
absent, other scavengers in abundance attack this food material. I found it swarming with the 
larv® of Adelops and the maggots of a small fly (Phora). The imagos of the beetle and puparia 
of the fly were also present in countless numbers.” (Hubbard, Amer. Ent., iii., 38.) 
III.—SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTION OF THE INVERTEBRATE ANIMALS. 
INFUSORIA. 
Four species of Infusoria appear to have been discovered by Dr. Tellkampf iu Mammoth 
Cave, and I quote the following remarks on these forms from his essay in the New York Journal 
of Medicine for July, 1845, page 86 : “ I have examined the water of the cavern for animalculae, 
and have shown some hasty sketches of them to Professor Ehrenberg, of Berlin, Germany, who 
has furnished me with some remarks concerning them. 
“In the farthest grotto, 1 Serena’s Bower,’ 9 miles from the entrance of the cave, are found 
some animalcule resembling Monas Icolpoda, Monas socialis , and anew species similar in external 
form to the Bodo. 
“The water of the ‘ Styx’ contains a Chilomonas, which also appears to be new. Ch. emargi- 
nata, elliptic, irregularly sinuated, with a projecting lip; and, besides, another species resembling 
the Kolpoda cucullus; possibly it might have been the Chilodon ououllus, which is very common in 
mines.” § 
* The fungi of our caves have not, as far as I know, been studied. Two species have been identified by Dr. 
Farlow from the Mammoth Cave, Ozonium aurieomum Link, the mycelium of an unknown fungus, and Stemoniiis 
ferruginea, also immature. A list by Pokorny of fungi from the Adelsberg and Luege caverns (Germany), extracted 
from Dr. Ad. Schmidt’s Die Grotten und Hoehlen von Adelsberg, Wien, 1854, and kindly sent me by Dr. Hagen, 
enumerates nineteen species, all found above ground, and originating, as Pokorny thinks, from spores introduced 
from without on wood. (Hubbard, l. c.) 
t For an accurate account of these experiments, see Popular Science Monthly for February, 1878. (Hubbard, l. c. ) 
t During the summer months, when the temperature outside is higher than that of the cave (59° Fahr.), a strong 
current of air flows out of its mouth. The incoming supply is said to be by filtration through the rocks, in which 
case it would be very probably freed of floating germs. (Hubbard, l. c.) 
| Iu addition, Ehrenberg (Microgeologie, 1856) gives a list of eight Polygastric Infusoria (Biddulphia ?., fossil ?, 
Bodo ?, Chilomonas, CalHonella f, Kolpoda, Monas ?, Synedra ulva); one fossil Polythalamian (infusorian;) five Phyto- 
litharia; and plant forms (microscopic fungi).” (Hubbard, in Amer. Ent., iii, 79.) 
