FIVE-BEARDED ROCKLING. 191 



Pennant says it attains tlie length of eighteen or nineteen 

 inches. It spawns in the winter, and feeds principally on 

 small thin-shelled Crustacea and young fishes. Mr. Low 

 says, " They are reckoned pretty good eating, but are never 

 got in any quantity ; never caught at a hook : the only me- 

 thod of getting them is by shifting the stones at low water, 

 when they are to be found with the Blennies." 



In its habits it closely resembles the Three-Bearded Rock- 

 ling, and several naturalists consider them only as varieties of 

 the same species. Professor Nilsson regards them as dis- 

 tinct, and follows Linnseus in considering a fish with four 

 barbules also as a distinct species. 



The length of the head compared to the length of the 

 body alone, is as one to four ; the depth of the body less 

 than the length of the head : the shape of the body less cy- 

 lindrical than that of the Three-Bearded, and the nose more 

 pointed ; the position and elevation of the fins similar to 

 those of the fish last described, but the first ray of the first 

 dorsal fin is longer and more conspicuous, and the vent is 

 nearer the head than in that species, being less than half the 

 distance from the nose to the end of the fleshy portion of 

 the tail. The fin-rays in number are — 



2nd D. 52 : P. 14 : V. 6 : A. 40 : C. 20. 



The body compressed ; the head depressed ; the mouth 

 rather small, with a band of small teeth in each jaw, and a 

 patch of similar teeth at the anterior part of the roof of the 

 mouth ; the under jaw the shortest, with a single barbule at 

 the chin ; the upper lip plain, without crenation, with two 

 small barbules near the point of the nose, and two others, as 

 long again, about as much before and within the nostrils as 

 the nostrils are before and within the eyes. The eyes small, 

 and placed near the nose. The colour of the upper part of 



