MUSEUM OF COMPAKATIVK ZOOLOGY. 93 



animal would continue to live in water as well as in air, particularly in 

 flowing water at a low temperature. 



Berg CaS) investigated the same subject, and, while confirming the 

 results of liis predecessors so far as the fact of cutaneous respiration is 

 concerned, concluded that the quantity of carbonic acid gas exhaled is 

 less than that found by Regnault and Reiset. Less attention appears to 

 have been given to the subject of cutaneous respiration in fishes than to 

 the same process in amphibians and mammals ; though Spallanzani, and 

 later Humboldt and ProveuQal ('11, p. 8G), found it to occur in these 

 animals to a slight extent. 



Quincaud ('73, p. 1143) found that an eel of 530 grams' weight ab- 

 sorbs 0.58 c.c. of oxygen in an hour through the skin. 



With this attempted explanation of the color of Typhlogobius the 

 question at once arises, Is this color peculiar to this fish, or is it com- 

 mon to all others that live habitually excluded from the light as this one 

 doesl If all the other blind fishes have the same color, and from the 

 same cause, viz. from the vascularity of the integument, then we should 

 have to suppose the same explanation to apply to all ; and this would 

 diminish its probability, though of course it would not necessarily 

 wholly invalidate it. In speaking of the color of blind fishes, Professor 

 Putnam ('72, p. 8) gives a list of seven partially or wholly sightless gen- 

 era of the family Siluridse, found in various parts of South America, 

 Africa, and Asia. Of their color he says : " All the other members of 

 this family [Siluridse] having rudimentary or covered eyes are also dark 

 colored ; while the blind fish of the Mammoth Cave and of the caves 

 of Cuba are nearly colorless." Concerning the color of Gronias nigri- 

 labris, already mentioned in other connections. Cope ('64, p. 232) says : 

 "The color of the upper surfaces, tail, fins, barbels, and under jaw is 

 black ; sides varied with dirty yellow, abdomen and thorax yellowish 

 white." And this author remarks in the same connection that the 

 " dark pigment of the skin of this animal comes off upon the hands in 

 handling it." 



Concerning the color of the several species of the three blind, or nearly 

 blind, groups of the Gobiidse other than Typhlogobius, I gather the fol- 

 lowing from Gilnther ('61, pp. 133-138). 



In the characterization of the group Amblyopina the eyes are spoken 

 of as " very small, and more or less hidden." No mention is made in 

 this connection of the color, thougli the name Amblyopus roseus (Cuv. 

 and Val., XII. 164), as applied to the whole genus Amblyopus, is given 

 in a foot-note. Of the eiglit species enumerated one is said to have " eyes 



