162 THE GOBY 



plateful of consommt converted her complexion of cream 

 and roses her ivory shoulders and alabaster arms into 

 those of a blackamoor ! What might not Grimm or Hans 

 Andersen have woven out of such a calamity ? 



Well, of British gobies, the recognised species not hav- 

 ing hitherto exceeded ten in number, the recent addition 

 of another to the list constitutes an event in ichthyology 

 deserving notice, especially as the newcomer exceeds all 

 other gobies in size. How has it escaped the vigilance of 

 naturalists for so long '< Nearly fifty years ago Jonathan 

 Couch reported having seen some huge gobies on the 

 Cornish coast, but he regarded them merely as large 

 specimens of the common Rock Goby (G. niger). It 

 has been reserved for Mr. F. Pickard Cambridge to dis- 

 cover these species afresh (1902), and, what is more, to 

 identify them with a well-known Mediterranean species, 

 namely, the Giant Goby (G. capita). Mr. Boulenger of 

 the British Museum, having found this species in 1901 on 

 the coast of Brittany, suspected that Couch's big gobies 

 might be the same, and asked Mr. Pickard Cambridge to 

 make special search on the Cornish coast, with the result 

 that he found scores of the true Giant Goby, so called 

 because it attains the tremendous stature of nine or ten 

 inches. In other respects it closely resembles the common 

 Rock Goby, having a similar tell-tale complexion; but, 

 although equipped like its relative with an effective 

 ventral sucker, it does not share the affection of that 

 species for the turmoil of the surf. It lurks in still pools, 

 beyond reach of any but the highest tides. 



The British fauna has been so closely scrutinised that 

 there remains but a very outside chance of adding a new 



