60 GOBIID.E ; GOBIES ; LUMP-FISH ; REMORA. 



fish ; and when the fishermen attack it, and it cannot dart 

 through the net, it fights like a Lion. On the east coast of 

 Scotland it is not an unfrequent visitor ; and its appearance and 

 habits cause it to be regarded with great dislike ; nevertheless 

 its flesh is wholesome and palatable. It is understood to prey 

 indiscriminately upon Fishes, Crustacea, and shelled Mollusca ; 

 its jaws and teeth being capable of breaking the hardest shell. 



622. In the family GOBIID.E, or Gobies, we find the same 

 simple flexible rays in the dorsal fin as in the preceding group ; 

 but the ventral fins are united beneath the chest, forming a sort 

 of conical sucker, which the Fish seem to use for the purpose of 

 occasionally attaching themselves to solid bodies. They live, 

 like the Blennies, near the shore, and prefer a clayey bottom, in 

 which they excavate canals, wherein they pass the winter. In 

 spring, they prepare a sort of nest, with sea-weed ; in which the 

 young (often produced alive, as in the Blennies) are protected ; 

 and the parents exert themselves considerably to bring them 

 food and to defend them from their enemies. Several species of 

 Goby exist in the European seas ; but none of them are of much 

 size, or of any direct value to Man. In other seas numerous 

 genera exist, more or less allied to the Gobies of our own coasts. 

 The family of the Gobies includes two singular forms of Fishes 

 which require some notice. One of these is the Cyclopterus, or 

 Lump-fish, a curious, shapeless creature, of a purplish black 

 tint, with thick fins and rows of tubercles along the back and 

 sides. The ventral fins form a large and powerful sucker, by 

 means of which the Fish adheres with astonishing firmness to 

 any object under water. Pennant says that a pail containing 

 several gallons of water could be lifted by the tail of one of 

 these Fishes which had attached itself to the bottom. The 

 Remora, or Sucking-fish, also belongs to this family ; although 

 its ventral fins are only united at the base. Its singular sucking 

 disc has been already referred to ( 549). 



623. There are certain spiny-finned Fishes, in which the 

 carpal bones are so elongated, as to form a sort of arm or wrist, 

 to the extremity of which the pectoral fin is articulated. This 

 conformation (an approach to which is seen among some of the 



