THE GOBIES, SUCKERS, AND BLENNIES 163 



support in the preponderance of male dragonets taken from 

 the inside of the cod and haddock. 



The Spotted Dragonet (C. maculatus) has a grey body 

 with light spots, and there are black spots on the fins. Day 

 records only a single British example, dredged off Shetland ; 

 but Giinther has since identified it from the Clyde estuary, 

 and it has also been taken off the west coast of Ireland. One 

 of the latest records of this species is from the neighbour- 

 hood of Falmouth, where Holt trawled it in July, 1897, in 

 30 or 35 fathoms of water. It is generally, in fact, regarded 

 as a deeper water species than C lyra, though even of the 

 latter it is only the females and young males that are, as a 

 rule, found quite close to land, the males being usually taken 

 in the shrimp-trawl. 



The large, upturned eyes and mobile mouth would 

 distinguish the dragonets apart from any peculiarity of colour- 

 ing, the mouth being thrust out in a curious fashion when 

 they are feeding on small copepoda. One of the most notice- 

 able habits of these fishes in the aquarium is to lie half buried 

 in the sand, and keep the pectoral fins in rapid rotation, a 

 motion also observed in pipe-fishes. 



The Suckers 



As already stated, the Suckers have developed still further 

 the disc-like arrangement that exists in a rudimentary form in 

 the gobies, and the adhesive organs of both the divisions of the 

 present group act, when pressed to a wet surface, even after 

 the death of the fish. These suckers are divided into two 

 distinct families, the one with three, the other with four, 

 representatives in our seas. The first includes the ungainly 

 lumpsucker (^Cyclopterus) and two smaller kinds, in all of 

 which the throat-fins themselves form the adhesive disc. The 

 second, with four species, have the disc in the form of a 

 separate structure between those fins. As a further con- 



