Laguna Barine Laboratorp 51 
of ocellated spots. Otherwise the two species differ in the number 
and size of scales, G. elegans having fewer, larger scales than G. 
evides; also in shape and in number of rays of the soft dorsal, in 
shape of caudal peduncle, in size of eye and its distance from dorsal, 
and in general shape of body. On the Southern California coast the 
two species may be readily separated by the difference in fin rays, 
G. elegans having a dorsal of V-XXVII to V-XXIX spines and 6-8 
rays, and an anal of [I-22 to I-25, while G. evides has a dorsal of 
V-XXVIII to V-XXXI spines, and 9-10 rays, and an anal of II-26 to 
11-28. Farther north, however, the species overlap, except in the 
rays of soft dorsal. In size both the average and full grown speci- 
mens of the two species differ greatly, G. evides being much the 
larger, averaging about 125 to 150 mm. in length, where G. elegans 
averages about 70 to 80 mm., and reaching a length of over 200 mm. 
while the largest specimens of G. elegans are less than 125 mm. 
Formerly these two species have been separated by the fin counts 
alone, which resulted in many northern specimens of G. elegans being 
included under G. evides. Such a distinction, however, will not hold. 
I have examined all the material in the Stanford University collee- 
tion, upon which nearly all reports on this species have been based, 
and find that northern specimens of both species having an increased 
number of fin rays have been called G. evides. Starks and Morris, 
(Marine Fishes of Southern California, p. 233), state that. at Mon- 
terey Bay only one specimen of G. elegans was found among about 
a hundred of G. evides. An examination of 225 specimens from this 
locality, including the latter lot, shows both species present, and G. 
elegans represented by 160 specimens, to 65 of G. evides. 
30th of these species are very common in the tide-pools about 
Laguna Beach, and probably continue so along the coast in favorable 
localities from San Diego to San Francisco or farther. Apparently 
G. elegans is always the more abundant of the two. This is certainly 
true on the southern coast, and judging from the material taken at 
Monterey it holds true in the north also. The species are commonly 
found associated in the same pools, living among the alge, and other 
kinds of vegetation, where their singularly variegated markings 
render them inconspicuous. 
Viscera: G. elegans—Internally, in the size, form and shape of the 
visceral organs, Gibbonsia elegans shows the same tendeney toward 
wide variation that appears in external characters, but not in any 
way conformable to this. A typical specimen is shown in Figures 
15 and 16, but from this type there are all sorts of variations in form 
and arrangement of organs, a series of which are represented dia- 
gramatically in Figure 17. The liver in some specimens is twice as 
large as in others; in some it is elongate, in others broad and short, 
