GOBIOIDID^E 327 



This species was originally described from the Ganges, and oc- 

 curs throughout the East Indies and north on the China coast to 

 Woosung. 



GOBIOIDID^E 



This group comprises all those elongate, more or less eel- 

 shaped or ribbon-shaped gobies that lack a pouchlike blind 

 sac on each side of the head above the opercle; the second 

 dorsal and anal are long, low, united more or less with the 

 caudal or ending at its base; the dorsals are united except in 

 one genus, Trypauchenopsis Volst, and in many species the 

 dorsals and anal are concealed under an envelope of thick, 

 tough skin. The body may be cylindrical, but is more often 

 laterally compressed, often strongly so, and may be naked or 

 more or less covered with minute rudimentary cycloid scales; 

 the head is more or less quadrangular to cylindrical, obtuse, 

 with heavy, protruding lower jaw, the mouth large, oblique to 

 nearly vertical; the sharp-pointed teeth may be in one, two, or 

 several rows, those of the outer row more or less enlarged, 

 curved, often f anglike ; a pair of stout canines is present behind 

 the symphysis of the lower jaw in some genera; except in the 

 genus Paragobioides, the eyes are small to minute, laterodorsal 

 to dorsal, covered with skin, distinct to invisible, sometimes rep- 

 resented by orbital fossae; the pectorals are usually small and 

 rounded, but may be elongate and pointed ; the ventrals may be 

 separate, but are usually completely united to form a disk, often 

 large, rarely small. The gill openings are small to medium, 

 vertical or nearly so, usually narrow, not extended forward, 

 the isthmus broad. 



Fishes of sandy beaches, estuaries, and rivers near salt water, 

 from India to southern Japan and throughout the East Indies 

 to Polynesia. 



The assignment of the genera of this group is very unsatis- 

 factory. S. L. Hora has published in the Records of the Indian 

 Museum for 1924 a valuable and suggestive paper on the eel- 

 shaped gobioid fishes, placing those with pouchlike cavities in the 

 subfamily Trypaucheninae, the others in the subfamily Tae- 

 nioninse. He defines the genera for his first subfamily, but 

 refuses to discuss the limits of the genera in the Taenioninae. 



Without a large amount of material from widely divergent 

 localities and some study of the types, it is likewise impossible 

 for me properly to limit the genera of the Gobioididae. The 

 genus Taenioides, to which I refer most of the Philippine species, 



