196 



GOBIES. 



where several large pike have taken up their 

 abode. A whole handful of sand-skippers may- 

 be transferred to a well-stocked aquarium, and 

 in a week or so hardly one will have survived; 

 there will be plenty of empty shells and rejected 

 limbs at the bottom of the aquarium, but nothing 

 more than their vestiges to tell that sand-skippers 

 once were. 



In the same rock-pools where the shrimps, 

 prawns, and sand-skippers are found, there reside 

 also temporarily numbers of little bright-eyed 

 active fish, hardly distinguishable from the 

 shrimps until captured. One of these fishes is 

 shown on plate n, fig. 4, and its name is popu- 

 larly, the One-spotted Goby, and scientifically, 

 Gohius unipunctatus. It derives its name from 

 the single spot that may be seen on the dorsal 

 fin, and which is so conspicuous a mark that 

 by it the creature may be easily distinguished, 

 at all events with sufficient accuracy for ordinary 

 purposes. There is another species of goby, 

 called the Two-spot, that is very common on the 

 coast; so common indeed are these little fish, 

 that I have taken upwards of thirty in as many 

 seconds, merely by sweeping with the gauze net 

 the waters of a rock-pool that had been condensed, 

 as it were, by draining. 



