84 GOBIES OF THE PHILIPPINES 



the caudal scaled for most of its length and there are minute 

 scales on the base of the preopercle; a line of widely spaced 

 pores begins under anterior margin of eye and circles around 

 beneath and behind eye; from above the last one a line of small 

 dotlike warts crosses over to the other side ; there are two pores 

 on posterior margin of preopercle and one at its upper angle. 



The color of the type in alcohol blackish brown ; the first dor- 

 sal, pectorals, and ventrals lighter brown, second dorsal and anal 

 blackish brown; the central rays of caudal brownish yellow, 

 the marginal rays blackish brown. The cotype pale brownish, 

 with dusky anal and second dorsal fins, and broad dusky upper 

 and lower margins to the caudal fin, leaving its middle area 

 pale ; the pectorals and ventrals pale, first dorsal pale anteriorly 

 with a dusky posterior portion. 



Here described from two specimens, the type, 81 millimeters 

 long, collected at Santo Domingo de Basco, Batan Island, Ba- 

 tanes Province, and the cotype, 54 millimeters long, from the 

 south coast of Cotabato Province, Mindanao. 



Dispersus, scattered, in allusion to its distribution. 



GOBIID^E 



THE TRUE GOBIES 



This large, important, and difficult group comprises the typical 

 gobies and contains the great mass of gobioid fishes. It includes 

 those gobies in which the ventral fins are united to form a single 

 organ, nearly always entire, rarely notched; across the base 

 is a membrane, or frenum, which converts the united ventrals 

 into a kind of vacuum cup, or sucking disk, by means of which 

 the fish attach themselves more or less firmly to objects. The 

 ventrals are composed of one spine and four or five rays; they 

 may be long or short, pointed or rounded, even circular, with 

 entire, lobate, or incised margins, and the frenum may be thin 

 or thick, entire, crenate, lunate, or bilobed. The ventrals may 

 be attached only at the base or may be fastened to the belly 

 along their whole extent. In the species that live in mountain 

 torrents the ventrals are a very efficient organ of adhesion. The 

 spinous dorsal is present in all Philippine species, with from 

 three to nine spines, but the vast majority have six spines. The 

 dorsals are separate or may be united at their base, close to- 

 gether or far apart. The number of second dorsal and anal 

 rays varies from five to thirty, but the majority of species have 

 from eight to eleven. The pectorals are always well developed, 



