476 The Long-Jawed Goby. [ August, 
ate them, and that he had had about eleven specimens cooked, 
and found them good, tasting, he thought, something like eels, 
the twelfth specimen he had preserved in alcohol, in the interest 
of natural science. This gentleman had the opportunity of ob- 
serving something of the mode of life of these fishes, and informed 
us that their holes, excavated in the muddy banks of tidal creeks, 
increase in size as they go downwards, so that the lower portion 
is below the water level, or at least sufficiently low to be kept 
wet by the percolation from the surrounding mud. 
When the various specimens now acquired were placed side by 
side, the difference in the relative length of their jaws was very 
conspicuous, for while in the smallest it was about one-fifth of 
the total length, in the largest it exceeded one-third. 
As the fish had now been found in two places in the bay, I 
thought I would try to find it also, and to this end sallied out 
one morning, armed with a spade, and commenced prospecting in 
a marsh at Berkeley, not very far from the State University. 
For a long time I was unsuccessful, as I did not know by what 
outward signs their habitations could be distinguished, and the — 
extent of mud-bank left bare by the retreating tide, was, as com- 
pared with my powers of delving, practically limitless. 
At last, toward evening, while digging in the bend of a small 
creek, in a stratum of soft, bluish mud, and at a depth of about 
a foot below a small puddle, I found five small fishes, which at first 
I believed to belong to an undescribed species, so little did they 
resemble the typical G. mirabilis, but which proved, upon a closer 
examination, to be the young of that species. There was the de- 
pressed, broad head, the funnel-shaped ventral “disk” formed 
by the union of the two ventral fins, and the compressed tail of 
the long-jawed goby, but where were the long jaws? The jaws 
were, of course, in their usual place, but their prolongations had 
only just commenced to grow along the sides of the head, and 
were not noticeable unless looked for. A comparison of the va- 
rious specimens proved conclusively that the strange-looking ap- 
pendage is developed during the growth of the fish, as will be 
seen by the following measurements of four individuals : — 
No. 1. No 2. No. 3. No. 
Total length 65mm. 98mm, 132mm. 165 mm. 
From tip of snout to end of maxillary 
expansion, measured along curve to cn 1l mm. 20mm. 40mm. 56 mm. 
tre line of jaw. 
In the smallest specimen the maxillary expansion extends be- 
yond the orbit for a distance about equal to that which inter-  — 
