236 ORDER ACANTHOPTERYG1I. 



Gobius (properly so called), Lacep. and Schn. 



In the true gobies the ventrals are united through- 

 out their whole length, and even before their base, by 

 a traverse, so as to form a concave disk. The body 

 is elongated, head moderate and rounded, cheeks in- 

 flated, and the eyes approximated ; two dorsal fins, 

 the last of which is long. Several species inhabit the 

 seas of Europe, whose characters are not yet suffi- 

 ciently ascertained l . 



These fishes prefer a clayey bottom, where they 

 excavate canals in which they pass the winter. In 

 the spring they prepare a rfest in some spot abounding 

 with fucus, which they afterwards cover with the roots 

 of the zostera ; here the male remains shut up, and 

 awaits the females, who successively arrive to deposit 

 their eggs ; he fecundates them, and exhibits much 

 care and courage in defending and preserving them 2 . 



1 Belon and Ronclelet have endeavoured to prove that this fish is 

 the Gobius of the ancients ; and Artedi pretends to have found in 

 the ocean the badly determined Mediterranean species of those au- 

 thors: hence has arisen a most inextricable confusion, to disentangle 

 which, it is necessary to re-commence both description and figures, 

 a task we shall partially undertake in our Ichthyology. 



2 These observations were made by the late Olivi, on a goby of 

 the canals of Venice, which he considers identical with the niger, but 

 which is perhaps another of the Mediterranean species ; they are 

 given by M. de Martens in the second volume of his Voyage to Venice, 

 p. 419. My conclusion is, that the goby is the phycis of the an- 

 cients, " the only fish that constructs a wcs/." Arist. Hist. lib. viii. 

 cap. xxx. 



