312 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



few words, then, as to his name and natural history. He 

 was called atco/Sw? (hobios) by the Greeks, and so 

 " gobius " or " gobio " by the Latins ; and as he belongs 

 to the Cyprinidce, or carp family, his correct ichthyo- 

 logical appellation is Oyprinus gobio, or, more familiarly, 

 Gobio fluviaMlis, from his love of running water. The 

 French call him goujon, and hence our " gudgeon," 

 which comes as direct from "hobios" as "journal," 

 through diumus, does from dies, " a day." Our goby is 

 certainly a pretty little fish, in shape very like his big 

 cousin, the barbel, and with a somewhat similar facial ex- 

 pression his nose and mouth being suggestive of rootling 

 at the bottom for his living, while his whole body seems 

 enveloped in a semi-opaque pearly coat. He is a slippery 

 and spineless little gentleman, as Ovid says of him, — 



" Lubricus efc spina nocuus non gobius ulla. ;'' 



fat and well-liking — " praspinguis, teres," as Ausonius 

 says, and never out of season when you can catch him. 

 He cannot boast any great size, a seven-inch fish being 

 very uncommon, while an eight-inch gudgeon would be 

 worth preserving in a glass case as a veritable monster ; 

 but Pennant (who saw and heard of many wonderful 

 things !) mention a gudgeon taken near Uxb ridge which 

 weighed a pound. The Thames Angling Preservation 

 Society tells us that we must not take, i. e. keep when 

 taken, a fish less than five inches, measuring from the 

 eye to the end of the tail ; but I fancy that in a day's 

 gudgeon-fishing there would be caught more under than 

 over this measurement. The Preservation Societies above 

 Staines do not, I believe, lay down any measurement for 



