THE BLIND TYPHLOGOBIUS OF CALIFORNIA. 



65 



TYPHLOGOBIUS: THE POINT LOMA BLIND FISH AND ITS RELATIVES. 



San Diego Bay is in part surrounded by mud flats which are covered by water 

 at high tide. Sand beaches take the place of the mud flats where the channel 

 approaches the shores. On the ocean shores a sandy beach stretches several miles 

 to the southeast from the mouth of the bay, while on the west rises the point of 

 land called Point Loma. The entire ocean beach at the base of this promontory 

 is rocky. In many places all the earth has been removed by the action of the 

 waves, leaving the bare rock; in other places, and more especially between the outer 

 point and Ballast Point, large bowlders lie embedded in the sand (frontispiece). 

 These are all covered at high tide, while but a few small pools remain about the 



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Fig. 25. (a) Young Gillichlhys mirabilis Girard. From mud flats of San Diego Bay. 



(b) Larva of Clevelandia or Lepidvgobius. From surface of San Diego Bay. 



(c) Clei<elandia ios Jordan and Gilbert. From San Diego Bay. 



(d) Quietula y-cauda Jenkins and Evermann. From San Diego Bay. 



rocks at low tide. Many of these rocks are covered with seaweeds, actineans, and 

 especially large chitons. All these localities are inhabited by relatives of the Point 

 Loma blind fish. The sloughs traversing the mud flats of the bay are inhabited 

 by Gillichthys mirabilis Cooper, the young of which is represented in figure 25 a. 



In the mud flats every tide pool as large as a man's hand contains Clevelandia 

 ios (fig. 25 c) ; nearer low-water mark in similar localities Quietula y-cauda are 

 found, but less abundant than Clevelandia ios. On digging in the sandy beaches 

 of the bay specimens of another species of this group, Ilypnus gilberti, are some- 

 times found buried in the sand. In the crab holes under the rocks about Point 

 Loma occurs the most remarkable of this family, the Point Loma blind fish, Typhlo- 

 gobiits californiensis (fig. 26 a). In deep water off Point Loma lives still another 

 goby, Gobius nicholsoni. 



