300 
FASCICULI MAL AT FUSES 
land, at any rate, it is absolutely deaf, and Robinson found, when shooting 
specimens, that those which were not hit took no notice whatsoever of the 
report of the gun, and only moved when the shot spattered them with mud.’ 
17. Boleophthalmus viridis (Ham. Buch.) 
Gobius viridis. Ham. Buch.^ Fish. Ganges., pp. 42-366, pi. 32, fig. 12. 
D= 5/26 ; A= 26. 
One large barbel under the symphysis of the lower jaw, and a row of five 
much smaller ones on each mandibular ramus ; four to six barbels on the 
upper lip. 
Two specimens, about four inches long. 
18. Boleophthalmus pectinirostris (Gmel. Lim.) 
Gobius pectinorostris, Gmel., Linn, i, p. 200. 
The third spine of the first dorsal fin is the longest ; its length is twice 
the height of the body at the origin of the spinous dorsal fin. The other spines 
of the first dorsal have also filamentous extremities. There are six oblique 
dark bands (in spirit) on the body behind the origin of the first dorsal fin. 
One specimen, seven inches in total length. 
19. Boleophthalmus boddaerti (Pall.) 
Gobius boddaerti. Fall., Spic. viii, p. ii, pi. 2, figs. 4-5. 
A number of specimens from two-and-a-half to seven inches in total length ; one specimen with 
four spines in the first dorsal fin. 
‘ The species of this genus do not differ from one another to any great 
extent in habits. The present form, which is the commonest at Jambu, 
hops about, like P. phya, in the hottest sunshine, and appears to make a 
permanent burrow, which, however, is of a very simple nature, devoid of a 
surrounding rampart. When alarmed it frequently wriggles, tail foremost, 
into the mud, and this would seem to be the way in which its holes are com- 
menced. Its food, and probably that of P. phya, is largely of a vegetable 
nature, and we have watched it browsing on a minute green alga that closely 
covers the surface of the mud-flats at certain points. Unlike P.phya, it carries 
its dorsal fin rays elevated in the air. This gives it a very distinctive appear- 
ance as the web of the fin is dotted with conspicuous blue spots. Possibly 
the fin aids it in its terrestrial progress, like the sail of an ice-boat, as the 
rays are lowered so as to lie prone whenever it passes through a pool of water 
even too shallow to wet its dorsal surface ; in such conditions a sail might cause 
