240 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
Fam. gobiidae. 
Body elongated , terete or with the caudal part compressed, head sometimes depressed. Dorsal fin- formation re- 
gular, continuous or divided into two fins, with the anterior part or fin shorter than the posterior and consisting 
of flexible, simple rays". Anal fin in structure and extent analogous to the soft-rayed part of the dorsal fin or 
the posterior dorsal fin. Ventral fins with 6 ( seldom 5) clearly distinct rays, the outermost being simple, the 
inner ones branched, and the innermost ( hindmost ) ones usually the longest. Pseudobranchice present, but some- 
times only rudimentary. Number of vertebra from 27 to 29. Air-bladder and pyloric appendages generally 
wanting. No osseous connexion between the suborbital ring and the preoperculum. 
This family, as established by Gunther h , is one 
of those containing the greatest number of species 
— about 500 are entered in the system — even though 
future researches may show, as seems highly probable, 
that many of these species are really only nominal. 
The variations of form within the family are also 
sufficiently marked to have given rise to the establish- 
ment of several subfamilies — - Gunther 0 adopts four — 
two of which are represented in the Scandinavian fauna. 
Here, however, we may follow Richardson and Blee- 
ker in treating the one of these subfamilies as a di- 
stinct family. 
Subfamily G 0 B 1 1 N fE. 
Ventral fins set close together. Vertical fins distinct. Gill-openings lateral. 
The greater part, about 450, of the species be- 
longing to the family range themselves in this subfamily. 
In a great number of them, about 100 species, corre- 
sponding chiefly to Bleeker’s Eleotri formes, the ventral 
tins are indeed set close together, but are entirely or 
at least partly separate from each other. Some of these 
Ashes, the genera Periophthalmus and Boleophthalmus , are 
of especial interest on account of their singular manner 
of life, which, like that of the well-known Climbing- fish 
(Anabas), displays at its highest the capability of fishes 
of adapting themselves to circumstances foreign to 
their nature. These two genera belong to the Tropics, 
where they live between high and low water-mark or 
in fresh water near the sea. But water is hardly their 
true element, for they are generally found on land, 
where they, generally at least, seek their food. Their 
relatively narrow gill-openings enable them to sustain 
life for a long time in the air, and their pectoral fins 
are brachiate and fleshy at the base, being thus trans- 
a As a rule, this part of the dorsal fin-formation is shorter in 
it is wanting in the females. 
b Cat. Brit. Mus., Fish., vol. Ill, p. 1. 
c Bleeker (Arch. Neerl. Sc. Ex. Nat., tome IX (1874), pp. 2< 
but (as well as Gill: Smiths. Misc. Coll., No. 247, p. 6) he also ran, 
d Ostindisk Resa, p. 130. Cf. also Dussumier in Cuv., Val., 
Thierleben, Bd. 8, p. 123. 
formed into organs of creeping or hopping. The eyes, 
which project from their sockets, are protected by a 
dermal fold, a kind of lid. Such is their equipment 
for the life they lead, hopping about on clayey or muddy 
ground in chase of insects or crustaceans, or even 
leaping up on the branches of trees or the roots of the 
mangrove. Sometimes they may be seen in shoals, 
tumbling about or hopping, as if in sport, on the 
muddy ground, and at the approach of danger burying 
themselves in the mud, or seeking shelter in a hole 
burrowed by a crab or a crevice between the stones. 
Even Osbeck has described this singular phase of pisc- 
ine life*. 
The nucleus of the subfamily, the greater part of 
Bleeker’s Gobiiformes, on the other hand, consists of 
the forms which have the ventral fins united by a 
membrane into a funnel-shaped instrument of adhesion. 
To this division belong all the species of this subfamily 
that occur within the limits of the Scandinavian fauna. 
i the female than in the male, and in one of the Scandinavian species 
89 etc.) has an entirely different determination for his four subfamilies; 
ges Callionymus and Platyptera in two distinct families. 
Hist. Nat. Poiss., vol. 12, p. 186, and Pechuel-Loesche in Breiim’s 
