The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-12-04

matia, in Austria, is found small ba- trachian called the olm. This animal has four legs, but it's organs of vision are very imperfect.
 A very similar animal, only much smaller and with no traces of eyes ex- cept two black spots above the nos trils. was discovered in Texas few years ago. As the United States bu- reau of fisheries was boring an arte- sian well at it's San Marcos fish hatch cry cave stream about 190 feet below the surface was tapped, which shot up at the rate of 1,20O gallons minute. With it came large numbers of these cave salamanders, also thousands of tiny shrimp-like blind creatures.
 Among snakes there are four species on this continent which are practically blind. They are popula ly known as blind worms They are the lowest as we'll as the smallest of snakes; an ordinary earthworm is gi- gantic when compared with some.
 tC Ce1NOAA ldIy lOAllQ III IllO MI moth Cave of Kentucky, is of soft blush color, with white neck and feet. It has enormous eyes, black as night, but quite unprovided with irises.
 These eyes are insensible to light and when the experiment has been made of catching cavern rat and turning it loose in the bright sunlight 1t blunders about, striking itself against everything, is unable to pro- vide itself with food and finally falls down and dies. Tn its native depths 1t Is able to lead comfortable exist ence, as its enormously long whiskers are so sensitive that they enable f to find it's way rapidly through the dark ness.
 The principal food of the cavern rat consists of a kind of large cricket at pale yellow color, and whlcn, like most cave dwellers, is blind. The cav ern beetle was first discovered some seventy years ago in an Austrian cave the grotto of Adelsberg. One specimen only was caught, and though its dis coverer offered prize of S25 for an- other it was IA years before a second was found.
 This insect has little round hody very long legs and abs olutely no eyes Brought out from it's gloomy haunts linto the light of the sun, 1t dies almost immediately. Yet in Is home, fal beneath the surface oE the earth, il moves with as great rapidity and cer
 tainty as any of it's 'ey3l relatives CT the surface of the eai:n.
 To make. UT, for its lack of sight i
 is provided with ante1uae of extra
 ordinary length and de'icacy. BN
 means of these 1t feels its way ovel
 the rough surface and hunts its prey
 other smaller blind insects, with grea
 rapidity and absolute certainty
 The cavern beetle has its eaemie
 also. The blothrus (l specles If SCOT
 pion) and the great cyeless sp,de
 hunt 1t remorselessly.
 Prince Khevenhulls-, who thor
 ouhgly explored these caves som
 years ago, describes 1t as an extraor
 dinary sight to watch by -he light o
 a candle a scorpion. absolruelv eyeless
 hunting beetle, equally bind, atcni the cavern wall Although the beetl
 was several feet n front of tn
 scorpion, and divided from 1t by , Assure in the rock, yet the scorpio tracked 1t with absolute and alnlos appalling certainty.
 7 The spider found in these caves of a lovely ivory white, and is ablt
 like other insects which inhabit tn l same subterranean depths, to run yer s rapidly as if it had eyes and light t I use them.
 Instances of blindness among tn s crustacea are occasionally found. Tn 7 most noted is that of the blind cray , fish of the Mammoth and other cave f of Kentucky and Indiana. The ani , mai inhabits shallow pools with mud 7 dy bottom. It moves slowly and | f feelers spread out before 1t and gent l, ly moving to and fro, feeling, as } were, every inch of it's way. } One of the most curious cases of de ; generation amongst the crustacea { that of Ethusa granulata, one of tn stalkeyed crustacea. In shallow ws ter it Is found with well develope
 eyes. Tn deeper water, from 1lo , S70 fathoms eyestalks are presen but the animal is apparently blind, tf ) eyes being replaced by rounded tern : linations to the stalks; in example ) from 500 to TOO fathoms, in anoth l locality, the eyestalks have lost the l special character, have become ike and their ends combine into a stror } pointed beak. Tn this case there Is
 gradual modification, depending al , parentN upon gradual diIninutic 8 and final disappearance of solar light