Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 150, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1913 — CAVE DWELLERS ALL BLIND. [ARTICLE]

CAVE DWELLERS ALL BLIND.

Animals That Um Underground Hava Sans!** (tor- -- r Heart** Thu undemtu m me cavga has a world at Its own. Animals as* San In subterranean caverns hoDowet eat b 7 streams, develop, reproduce and die while forever deprived at the sme light There la no cave mammal except a rat nor la there a cave bird There are no antmala that require mn**h nourishment Grottos with underground riven have -the most Ufa. Usually the subterranean life resembles tho general type* of the ooontry. It has entered the cave and become acclimated there, undergoing divers adaptive modifications. So we generally find, in modified forms, the life of our time: But In some caverns there seem to be the remains of an ancient animal life that has everywhere else disappeared from terrestrial rivers and lives only In certain caverns. The creatures of modern species that have adapted themselves to underground conditions are sharply separated from the light dwellers. Their skin Is whitish or transparent. Ths eye atrophies or disappears altogether. The optic nerve and the optic lobe disappear, leaving the brain profoundly modified. Other organa develop in proportion. Those of hearing, smell and touch become large. Sensitive hairs, long and coarse, appear all over the body.