MŒURS DU GOBIUS RUTHENSPAURI. 279 



« thus keeps guard over her eggs and protects them from the crus- 

 u tacea, such as shrimpsand Eurydice pulchra (a small butvoracious 

 « Isopod, extremely common in the Dee). If the shell isturned over 

 (( and the fish driven away, thèse crustacea attack the ova at once, 

 (t l)ut as soon as the parent is permitted, she returns, drives them 

 « away, and by burrowing wilh her head under one end of the shell, 

 « soon gets it into its place again » (M S S. March 2nd 1881). » 



Comme je l'ai fait remarquer plus haut, je n'ai jamais pu obtenir 

 des Gobius Ruthensparri que j'ai observés en captivité qu'ils retour- 

 nassent leur coquille quand elle se trouvait renversée la convexité 

 en bas. Je suis donc porté à croire que l'observation de Walker ne 

 se rapporte pas au Gobais Ruthensparri. Le point d'interrogation 

 que l'auteur précité a eu soin de placer devant le mot G. Rulhens- 

 /)fl?'r<' parle en faveur de cette hypothèse. 



Fries, Ekstrom et Sundevall (-12, p. 247 et 248), analysant une 

 observation de Saville-Kent {'71) sur le Gobius niger, s'expriment de 

 la manière suivante : 



« The Black Goby is frequently met with beneath large stones at 

 low water, it selecting such a habitat not only as an ordinary domi- 

 cile, but as a nursery where it may safely deposit and hatch its 

 spawn. The eggs, as frequently observed by the writer, are of very 

 fiingular shape, being elongate, ovate or fusiform^ about three times 

 as long as broad, and are attached verticnlly by one of the smaller 

 ends in a single, closely approximated layer, Ihat may extend over 

 an area of many square inches of the under surface of the rock 

 selected. Over thèse eggs the maie fish nov^-mounls guard, vigorously 

 repelling ail wouldbe intruders with whom he can cope on equal 

 terms, and in those instances in which the disturbing influences 

 are apparently too strong for him — such as human interférence 

 — resorting, in self-defence, to an artful slratagem. On several 

 occasions, when shore — coUecting in the Channel Islands, the 

 writer bas, in fact, on turning the rocks over in scarch of spécimens, 

 dislodged what at first sight, frora the apparently large size of its 



