Gobioidei, Discocephali, and Taeniosomi 463 



mouth, armed with a bristling row of teeth. This would be 

 a great mistake, for our little fish has no teeth worth bragging 

 about, and does not open his mouth any wider than a well- 

 behaved fish should do. The great difference between his 

 long jaws and those of a garpike is that the latter's project 

 forward, while those of our goby are prolonged backward 

 immensely. 



"The long-jawed goby was discovered by Dr. J. G. Cooper 

 in the Bay of San Diego, among seaweed growing on small 

 stones at the wharf, and in such position that it must have 

 been out of the water from three to six hours daily, though 

 kept moist by the seaweed. 



" On a recent occasion a single Gillichthys, much larger than 

 any of the original types, was presented by a gentleman who 

 said that the fish, which was new to him, was abundant upon 

 his ranch in Richardson's Bay, in the northern part of the 

 Bay of San Francisco ; that the Chinamen dug them up and 

 ate them, and that he had had about eleven specimens cooked, 



FIG. 419. Long-jawed Goby. Gillichthys mirabilis Cooper. Santa Barbara. 



and found them good, tasting, he thought, something like eels. 

 The twelfth specimen he had preserved in alcohol, in the interest 

 of natural science. This gentleman had the opportunity of 

 observing something of the mode of life of these fishes, and 

 informed us that their holes, excavated in the muddy banks of 

 tidal creeks, increase in size as they go downward, so that the 

 lower portion is below the water-level, or at least sufficiently low 

 to be kept wet by the percolation from the surrounding mud. 



"When the various specimens now acquired were placed side 

 by side, the difference in the relative length of their jaws was 

 very conspicuous, for while in the smallest it was about one- 

 fifth of the total length, in the largest it exceeded one-third. 



"As the fish had now been found in two places in the bay, 



