Littell's Living Age/Volume 125/Issue 1608/Miscellany

Interesting additions to our knowledge of the fauna of the Mammoth Cave have recently been made by Mr. F. W. Putnam, of Salem, U.S., who, as a special assistant on the Kentucky State Geological Survey, of which Prof. N. S. Shaler is the director, had great facilities extended by the proprietors of the cave, and he made a most thorough examination of its fauna, especially in relation to the aquatic animals. Mr. Putnam passed ten days in the cave, and by various contrivances succeeded in obtaining large collections. He was particularly fortunate in catching five specimens of a fish of which only one small individual had heretofore been known, and that was obtained several years ago from a well in Lebanon, Tennessee. This fish, which Mr. Putnam had previously described from the Lebanon specimen under the name of Chologaster agassizii, is very different in its habits from the blind fishes of the cave and other subterranean streams, and is of a dark colour. It lives principally on the bottom, and is exceedingly quick in its motions. It belongs to the same family as the two species of blind fishes found in the cave. He also obtained five specimens of four species of fishes that were in every respect identical with those of the Green River, showing that the river fish do at times enter the dark waters of the cave, and when once there apparently thrive as well as the regular inhabitants. A large number of the white blind fishes were also procured from the Mammoth Cave and from other subterranean streams. In one stream the blind fishes were found in such a position as to show that they could go into daylight if they chose, while the fact of finding the Chologaster in the waters of the Mammoth Cave, where all is utter darkness, shows that animals with eyes flourish there, and is another proof that colour is not dependent on light. Mr. Putnam found the same array of facts in regard to the crayfish of the cave, one species being white and blind, while another species had large black eyes, and was of various shades of a brown colour. A number of living specimens of all the above-mentioned inhabitants of the waters of the cave were successfully brought to Massachusetts after having been kept in daylight for several weeks, proving that all the blind cave-animals do not die on being exposed to light, as has been stated.