ACANTHOPTERYGIANS. 153 



Blennies, they can live for some time out of water, their stomach has no 

 cul-de-sac, and the intestinal canal is not furnished with caeca; finally, 

 the males have the same little appendage behind the anus, and some spe- 

 cies are known to be viviparous. They are small or moderate sized 

 fishes, which live among the rocks near the shore. Most of them have a 

 simple natatory bladder. 



Gobius, Lacep. and Schn. 



In the true Gobies the ventrals are united throughout their whole 

 length, and even before their base by a traverse, so that they form a con- 

 cave disk. The body is elongated; head moderate and rounded; cheeks 

 inflated and the eyes approximated; two dorsal fins, the last of which is 

 long. Several species inhabit the seas of Europe, whose characters are 

 not yet sufficiently ascertained*. 



They prefer a clayey bottom, where they pass the winter in canals 

 which they excavate. In the spring they prepare a nest in some spot 

 abounding with fucus, which they afterwards cover with roots of the Zos- 

 tera; here the male remains shut up, and awaits the females, who suc- 

 cessively arrive to deposit their eggs; he fecundates them, and exhibits 

 much care and courage in defending and preserving themy. 



G. niger, L. ; Penn. Brit. Zool. pi. 38. (The Black or Common 

 Goby). Body blackish-brown ; dorsals bordered with whitish ; the 

 most common species on the coast of Europe. The extremities of 

 the superior rays of the pectorals are free ; length four or five inches. 

 G.jozzo, Bl. 107, f. 3. (The Blue Goby). Brown, marbled 

 with blackish ; blackish fins ; two white lines on the first dorsal, 

 whose rays are prolonged in filaments above the membrane. 



G. minutus, L. ; Aflua, Penn., pi. 37. (The White Goby). 

 Body a pale fawn colour; fins whitish, transversely marked with 

 fawn-coloured lines; length, from two to three inches. 



The Mediterranean, which is perhaps inhabited by these three species, 

 produces several others of different sizes and colours^. 



G. capito, Cuv. ; Gesner, 396. (The Great Goby). Olive, 

 marbled with blackish ; lines of blackish points on the fins ; the 

 head broad and the cheeks inflated ; length one foot and more. 



G. cruentutus, Gmel. (The Bloody Goby). Tolerably large; 

 brown, marbled with grey and red; lips and operculum marbled with 



* Belon and Rondelet have endeavoured to prove that this fish is the Gobius of 

 the antients, and Artedi pretends to have found in the ocean the badly determined 

 Mediterranean species of those authors. Hence has arisen a most inextricable con- 

 fusion, to disentangle which it is necessary to recommence both descriptions and 

 figures, a ta-k we shall partially undertake in our Icthyology. 



f These observations were made by the late Olivi, on a Goby of the canals of Ve- 

 nice, which he considers identical with the niger, but which is perhaps another of the 

 numerous Mediterranean species; they are given by M. de Martens in the second 

 volume of his Voy. to Venice, p. 419. My conclusion is, that the Goby is the Phycis 

 of the antients, " the only fish that constructs a nest." Arist. Hist., lib. V III, cap. xxx. 



% See the descriptions, but without wholly adopting the nomenclature, of ltisso, 

 Icth. de Nice, p. 155, et seq. 



