EDITORIAL GLEANINGS.
It appears that a new fish may be added to our faunistic catalogues, if carefully sought. Mr. G.A. Boulenger, in this (September) number of the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' gives the following particulars. "Last year in the Bay of Concarneau, and this year in the Gulf of St. Malo, my attention was attracted to a large Goby, growing to 10 inches, and most excellent eating, which appears to have been overlooked by all authors who have written on the fishes of the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay. This Goby I have ascertained to be Gobius capito, C. & V., a species believed to be restricted to the Mediterranean."
As it is highly probable that this species will be added to our British fauna, Mr. Boulenger has given the following diagnosis to assist our British ichthyologists:—"Habit particularly stout and heavy; depth of body 5 times in total length; length of head 32⁄3 times. Head a little broader than deep; snout 11⁄2 diameter of eye, which is 51⁄2 times in length of head, and a little exceeds interorbital width; strongly enlarged outer teeth in the jaws; maxillary extending to below posterior third of eye; head scaly only on the occipital and upper opercular regions. The distance between the eye and the dorsal equals the distance between the end of the snout and the preopercle. Dorsal VI, 15, the two portions very narrowly separated; the longest soft rays 1⁄2 length of head, a little longer than the rays of the first fin, the base of which measures 1⁄2 its distance from end of snout. Anal with 12 rays. Pectoral 3⁄4 length of head, with silk-like upper rays. Ventral not reaching vent, with well-developed anterior flap forming an obtusely pointed process on each side. Caudal rounded. Caudal peduncle as long as deep. 61 scales in a longitudinal series, 22 between dorsal and anal. Greenish to blackish olive, more or less spotted and marbled with black; dorsal and caudal fins spotted with black: ventral whitish; yellowish white beneath. Total length 19 centimetres.
"Of the two British species with which this Gobius may have been confounded, G. paganellus and G. niger differ in the larger scales, there not being more than 17 between the dorsal and the anterior rays of the anal and 55 in a lateral series, and in the absence of the antero-lateral lobe of the ventral disk."
We trust that we may soon receive an account of the capture of Gobius apito along our southern coasts.
