68 The Point Loma Blind Fish. [ ZOE 
in the latter part of May in the pools left at low tide about the piles 
of wharves. They beautifully illustrate the metamorphosis under- 
gone by the tail from the lophocercal to the heterocercal and homo- 
cercal stages. This fish has until the past year been known from 
only four specimens. Three of these were from Los Animas Bay, 
and one from San Francisco. 
The most remarkable of the gobies is undoubtedly the blind one 
_ inhabiting the crab holes under rocks at Point Loma. It has been 
found nowhere else about San Diego, but has been taken at Ensen- 
ada. Its habitat is, as far as known, quite limited. In its pink 
color and general appearance it much resembles the blind fishes in- 
habiting the caves of southern Indiana. Its peculiarities are doubt- 
less due to its habits. The entire bay region is inhabited by a car- 
ideoid crustacean which burrows in the mud. It, like the blind fish, 
is pink in color. Its holes in the bay are frequented by Clevelandia, 
etc., while at the base of Point Loma, where the waves sometimes 
dash with great force, the blind fish is its associate. 
On rough days few fish are seen, though ever so many stones are 
overturned, a task rendered somewhat laborious and bad for the 
fingers by the numerous worn tubes, etc., attached to the rocks. On 
mild days, on the contrary, on very low tides quantities are found 
and almost invariably in company with one of the crustaceans men- 
tioned above. Sometimes the fishes live quite out of water on the 
damp gravel and sand under a rock, but more frequently small 
pools of water fill all the depressions under the rocks, and the 
fishes swim rapidly away in their attempt to hide in the crab holes, 
several of which always branch from the cavity in which the rock 
has lain. 
In the bay the gobies habitually live out of the holes into which 
they descend only when they are frightened, while at Point Loma 
they never leave their subterranean abode, and to this fact we must 
attribute their present condition. 
How long these fishes have lived after their present fashion it 
would be hard to conjecture. The period which would produce 
such decided structural changes cannot be a brief one. The scales. 
_have entirely disappeared, the color has been reduced, the spinous 
dorsal has been greatly reduced; not only have the eyes become 
stunted, but the whole frontal region of the skull and the optic 
nerves have been profoundly changed. 
