— 
1877.] The Long-Jawed Goby. 475 
As Gillichthys is simply a compound of the name of a cele- 
brated American icthyologist with the Greek word for a fish, and 
mirabilis means nothing more than ‘ wonderful” or “ curious,” 
this Latin name gives no idea of the fish, so it will be as well to 
eall it the long-jawed goby, as its chief peculiarity consists in its 
tremendous length of jaw. 
A garpike has a long jaw, and so has an alligator, and it is not 
unlikely that the title will call up in the minds of some who read 
this the idea of a terrible mouth, armed with bristling rows of 
teeth. This would be a great mistake, for our little fish has no 
teeth worth bragging about, and does not open his mouth any 
. wider than a well-behaved fish should do. The great difference 
between his long jaws and those of a garpike is that the latter’s 
project forwards, while those of our goby are prolonged back- 
wards immensely: 
The long-jawed goby was discovered by Dr. Cooper-in the 
bay of San Diego, among seaweed growing on small stones at the 
wharf, and in such a position that it must have been out of 
water from three to six hours daily, though kept moist by the 
seaweed. 
~ Dr. Cooper’s two specimens held their place as curiosities 
among the olla podrida of the Museum of the California Acad- 
emy of Sciences for several years, no one suspecting that the fish 
was a resident of the neighborhood of San Francisco, as no speci- 
mens were ever found in the fish-market. 
A few months ago two specimens were brought to the Academy 
by one of its members, who stated that he had obtained them 
from some Chinamen who lived on the marshes near the mouth 
of San Antonio Creek, Oakland; that they were found by dig- 
ging in the mud beside the brackish creeks that intersect the 
marshes, and that the Chinamen eat them, and find them good. 
These specimens were not so large as those presented by Dr. 
Cooper, and differed from them in the much smaller proportion- 
ate length and width of the singular cartilaginous expansion of 
the maxillary bone, which, uniting with a membrane from the 
lower jaw, continues backwards as a long fold or pouch as far as, 
or even beyond, the gill-covers, and gives to the fish its unique 
appearance. i 
On a more recent occasion a single Gillichthys, much larger 
than any of those before mentioned, was presented by a gentle- 
man, who said that the fish, which was new to him, was abun- 
dant upon his ranch in Richardson’s Bay, in the northern part of 
the bay of San Francisco ; that the Chinamen dug them up and 
