258 



SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 



Christiania Fjord for example, Collett met with the 

 formei- species "in enormous numbers." In Denmark, 

 up to the year 1885, according to Winthek and Han- 

 sen, only 4 specimens of Gobius jiictiis had been found. 

 According to Day, on the other hand, it had been 

 met with on the Welsh coast; and, as it is proljaljly 

 synonymous with ^Ioreau's Gobius laticeps", it also 

 occurs on the coast of Normandy. 



These two "species" also occur in the Baltic, though, 

 as far as we can ascertain, not in their fully typical 

 form. At Gudhjem (Bornholm) Dr. Kolmodin has 

 taken a Goby 36 mm. in length, with the head 8 mm. 

 long, the longitudinal diameter of the eyes, which were 

 almost contiguous on the forehead, measuring 2V2 nini., 

 and the least depth of the tail slightly more tlian 2 

 mm., the fish thus possessing ihc eyes oi Gobius pictus, 

 but the form of Gobius minutus. Mr. C. A. Hansson 

 too, has taken at Rodo, in the neighbourhood of Sunds- 

 vall, a specimen of Gobius microps, typical in the form 

 of the bodj^ but by the number of the scales referred 

 to Gobius minutus. Specimens similar to these and others 

 which have been described as "doubtful examples," 

 indicate the influence of external circumstances on form 

 as well as on colour, and render the distinctions be- 

 tween the small Gobies difficult, if nut impossible, to 

 maintain. 



WiNTHEH and Malm have both given the fullest 

 descriptions, based on their own observations, of the 

 habits of Gobius microps, and the latter of those of 

 Gobius jiicfus. Both tliese fishes generally live in water 



of no great depth, and on sunny days often stay close 

 in shore. Malm writes as follows of Gobius microps: 

 "It keeps to the bottom, upon which it rests; and it 

 is then so like a shrimp (Cranffon) both in colour and 

 habitus, that one may easily be deceived. It takes a 

 bait so freely that I have often caught fifty examples 

 in an hour at the same spot." Of Gobius pictus tlie 

 same writer says: "The females, which kept to the very 

 bottom and close in shore, among stones and seaweed, 

 often at a depth of no more than an inch or t^vo, and 

 in company with a few females of Gobius microps, 

 were easil^■ taken on the hook; but the males, on tlie 

 other hand, were extremel}^ cautious and hai-dly ever 

 took a bait. When frightened, they took refuge under 

 stones and seaweed, but soon reappeared whew the hook 

 Avas cast afresh .... At the beginning of July I took 

 several females full of roe, but in the middle of the 

 same month several spent ones, a decisive proof that 

 the spaAvning-season occurs at about midsummer. The 

 males were at least from 6 to 8 times as rare as the 

 females." At certain spots, however, Collett sometimes 

 (in autumn) found, almost without exception, only 

 males of Gobius pictus. According to Wixther Go- 

 bius microps is most active at night, and is then often 

 caught in shrimp-pots. In winter, according to Col- 

 lett, these fishes withdraw into deep water; but as 

 early as the beginning of March, the day after the 

 breaking up of the ice in the Sound, Winthee found 

 numerous examples of Gobius viicro2)s at a depth of a 

 foot or two. 



" Hist. Xat. Poiss. Fr., tome II, p. 215. 



