CHAPTER XLI 
GOBIOIDEI, DISCOCEPHALI, AND TANIOSOMI 
UBORDER Gobioidei, the Gobies: Gobiide.—The great 
family of Gobide, having no near relations among 
>| the spiny-rayed fishes, may be here treated as form- 
ing a distinct suborder. 
The chief characteristics of the family are the following: 
The ventral fins are thoracic in position, each having one spine 
and five soft rays, in some cases reduced to four, but never 
wanting. The ventral fins are inserted very close together, 
the inner rays the longest, and in most cases the two fins are 
completely joined, forming a single roundish fin, which may be 
used as a sucking-disk in clinging to rocks. The shoulder-girdle 
is essentially perch-like in form, the cranium is usually depressed, 
the bones being without serrature. There is no lateral line, 
the gill-openings are restricted to the sides, and the spinous 
dorsal is always small, of feeble spines, and is sometimes 
altogether wanting. There is no bony stay to the preopercle. 
The small pharyngeals are separate, and the vertebre usually 
in normal number, 10 +14 =24. 
The species are excessively numerous in the tropics and 
temperate zones, being found in lakes, brooks, swamps, and 
bays, never far out in the sea, and usually in shallow water. 
Many of them burrow in the mud between or below tide-marks. 
Others live in swift waters like the darters, which they much 
resemble. A few reach a length of a foot or two, but most of 
the species rarely exceed three inches, and some of them are 
mature at half an inch. 
The largest species, Philypnus dormitor, the guavina de 
rio, is found in the rivers of Mexico and the West Indies. 
It reaches a length of nearly two feet and is valued as 
food. Unlike most of the others, in this species there are 
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