258 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
Christiania Fjord for example, Collett met with the 
former species “in enormous numbers.” In Denmark, 
up to the year 1885, according to Wintijer and Han- 
sen, only 4 specimens of Gobius pictus had been found. 
According to DAy, on the other hand, it had been 
met with on the Welsh coast; and, as it is probably 
synonymous with Moreau’s Gobius laticeps", it also 
occurs on the coast of Normandy. 
These two “species” also occur in the Baltic, though, 
as far as we can ascertain, not in their fully typical 
form. At Gudhjem (Bornholm) Dr. Kolmodin lias 
taken a Goby 36 mm. in length, with the head 8 mm. 
long, the longitudinal diameter of the eyes, which were 
almost contiguous on the forehead, measuring 27 2 mm., 
and the least depth of the tail slightly more than 2 
mm., the fish thus possessing the eyes of Gobius pictus, 
but the form of Gobius minutus. Mr. C. A. Hansson 
too, has taken at Rodo, in the neighbourhood of Sunds- 
vall, a specimen of Gobius microps, typical in the form 
of the body, but by the number of the scales referred 
to Gobius minutus. Specimens similar to these and others 
which have been described as “doubtful examples,” 
indicate the influence of external circumstances on form 
as well as on colour, and render the distinctions be- 
tween the small Gobies difficult, if not impossible, to 
maintain. 
Winther and Malm have both given the fullest 
descriptions, based on their own observations, of the 
habits of Gobius microps , and the latter of those of 
Gobius pictus. Both these fishes generally live in water 
of no great depth, and on sunny days often stay close 
in shore. Malm writes as follows of Gobius microps: 
“It keeps to the bottom, upon which it rests; and it 
is then so like a shrimp ( Crangon ) both in colour and 
habitus, that one may easily be deceived. It takes a 
bait so freely that I have often caught fifty examples 
in an hour at the same spot.” Of Gobius pictus the 
same writer says: “The females, which kept to the very 
bottom and close in shore, among stones and seaweed, 
often at a depth of no more than an inch or two, and 
in company with a few females of Gobius microps, 
were easily taken on the hook; but the males, on the 
other hand, were extremely cautious and hardly ever 
took a bait. When frightened, they took refuge under 
stones and seaweed, but soon reappeared when the hook 
was cast afresh .... At the beginning of July I took 
several females full of roe, but in the middle of the 
same month several spent ones, a decisive proof that 
the spawning-season occurs at about midsummer. The 
males were at least from 6 to 8 times as rare as the 
females.” At certain spots, however, Collett sometimes 
(in autumn) found, almost without exception, only 
males of Gobius pictus. According to Winther Go- 
bius microps is most active at night, and is then often 
caught in shrimp-pots. In winter, according to Col- 
lett, these fishes withdraw into deep water; but as 
early as the beginning of March, the day after the 
breaking up of the ice in the Sound, Winther found 
numerous examples of Gobius microps at a depth of a 
foot or two. 
Hist. Nut. Poiss. Fr ., tome II, p. 215. 
