Gillichthys mirabilis Cooper, State Coll. No. 627. [[Fig. 24.]]
Fig. 24.
Specific characters. Scales along middle of side, about 90 in 27 rows.
D. 6-13; C. 13-13; A. 11; V. 6 + 6; P. 20.
Colors.—When alive mottled with light and dark olive, paler below, sides of head reddish. In alcohol black, pale below, and scales below middle of sides finely punctate each with 8-10 dots, only visible under a microscope.
Hab.—I found these remarkable fish only in San Diego Bay, and in but one station, which was among seaweed growing on small stones at the wharf of Newtown the military post, in November, 1861. They were left by the receding of the tide, and must have been out of the water from three to six hours daily, though kept moist by the seaweed. The four obtained were all females containing large masses of ova, and may have come to the spot in order to deposit them.
I could not obtain a glass vessel suitable for an aquarium, so as to keep them alive and observe their habits. The use of the strange maxillary processes or channels is obscure, nothing analogous being known in other fishes, the nearest approach to them being apparently the lengthened maxillaries of some Salmonidæ and Clupeidæ, fish of entirely different habits and affinities, this one being evidently one of the Gobidæ. The stomach contained small crabs, apparently swallowed whole.