GOBIOMORPIIS. 
mentions cccpvi] ;<a>fiiT)jg as the young of small Gobies 
which creep on the bottom"; and from this source 
Rondelet* derived his Apliya cobites, a species difficult 
to fix, but referred by Artedi and his immediate suc- 
cessors to Gobius minutus (see above). The first post- 
Linmcan writer to apply the name of nonnat to a fixed 
species, was Risso. He originally referred this species 
to the genus Atherina, but when lie corrected his mis- 
take, he placed it in a new genus, Aphia, beside Go- 
bius, but in the family next after it. 
To the systematist this genus is of special interest 
on account of its remarkable changes of growth and 
external sexual characters, which still further increase 
our hesitation to go to too great lengths in the dis- 
tinction of species within the preceding genus, to which 
Apliya is by no means distantly related. In the only 
species belonging to this genus, the form of the body 
during youth (fig. 71, b) is elongated and compressed", 
reminding us especially of the fry of the Herring; and 
it is not until the sexual organs approach maturity, 
that the Gobioid appearance of this species is developed. 
The breadth of the body, especially of the head, now 
increases; and the interorbital space, which has hitherto 
been narrow, measuring only slightly more or even less 
than half the diameter of the eye, attains a breadth 
equal to the longitudinal diameter of the eye or, in the 
males, still greater (fig. 69). The most important, se- 
condary, sexual distinction lies, however, in the form 
and size of the jaw-teeth. In the females they retain 
their juvenile arrangement, and are small, pointed, some- 
what curved, of uniform size, and set fairly close to- 
gether in a single row. In the full-grown males, on 
the other hand (fig. 70), these teeth disappear, in the 
front of the mouth at least, but are replaced by a fresh 
row of larger, more scattered and somewhat blunt teeth, 
4 or 5 on each of the intermaxillary bones and 3 or 4 on 
each half of the lower jaw; and within this row, in the 
lower jaw at its end, but in the upper jaw farther for- 
265 
ward towards the snout, there appears a, recurved, canine 
tooth on each side. Though CakestrinG was the first 
to remark this difference in the teeth, it has been 
most fully elucidated by Collett 6 , who also came to 
Fig. 69. Apliya inimita ; bead of an adult male, showing the longi- 
tudinal and transverse rows of papillae belonging to the system of the 
lateral line, seen from above. Magnified. After Collett. 
a b 
Fig. 70. Apliya minuta; head of a young male (a), during winter, 
of an older male ( b ), just before the spawning-season, and of a full- 
grown male (c), during the spawning-season; seen from the side. In 
the last figure is shown the extension of the lateral line on the side 
of the head. Magnified. After Collett. 
the conclusion that these fishes, as well as the follow- 
ing genus, are- annual vertebrates, the only instances 
of the kind, which propagate their species when a year 
old, and die soon afterwards. 
a Anim. Hist., lib. VI, cap. 15. 
b De Piscibus , lib. VII, cap. III. 
c Apicius took this form as his model, and though far from the sea, where it was quite impossible to obtain these fishes, thus pro- 
cured for Nioomedes, king of Bithynia, the coveted dainty, by cutting turnips into thin slices and thoroughly boiling them with spices in oil. 
(Rondel., 1. c., cap. II.) 
d Arch. Zool., Anat., Fisiol. vol. I (Genova, Dec. 1861), p. 152. Kessler (Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscou, tome XXNII (1859), No. 2, 
p. 260) had also remarked this difference, but only in individual cases, and without regarding it as a sexual distinction. 
e Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1878, p. 325. 
84 
Scandinavian Fishes. 
