GOB'SECK. A novel by Balzac (1830), named after the character about whom its plot is centred, and who appears in others of Bal zac's works as the type of the miser and usurer.
GOBY (from Lat. gobio, gobius, gudgeon, from Gk. ta,3u5s, kobios, gudgeon). A spiny-rayed fish of the family Gobeidre, whose ventral fins are completely united into a disk more or less ca pable of being used as a sucker, enabling the fish to cling to rocks and so resist the power of waves and currents. They have no air-bladder. The true gobies are generally small fishes, some of them inhabiting the shallow bays of the coast, and others deeper water; the species are very numerous, and belong to both hemispheres. One species (of Russia) inhabits fresh water alone. The gobies are very interesting, on account of their habits, and are of the number of nest building fishes, employing seaweeds and eel-grass for this purpose in spring. When the female has deposited her eggs in the nest, the male watches over them till they are hatched. In Europe, consequently, these lislies are much in request for aquaria, of which they are among the most inter esting occupants. A British species (Gobius
minutus), which ascends rivers, chooses a cockle shell for its home in sonic tidal pool. "The shell being placed on the sand with its concave sur face downward, the sand beneath it is hollowed out and cemented by a special mucilaginous secre tion from the skin; a cylindrical tunnel gives access to the nest, and the whole structure is covered over with loose sand." The female hav ing glued her eggs to the shell, the male guards them for six to nine days, until they hatch. An other European goby (Latrunculus pellucidus), which is nearly transparent, is remarkable for being perhaps the most short-lived of all verte brates, being born in midsummer, maturing dur ing the following winter, and spawning and dying upon the approach of summer, so that none live more than a year. Small species of several genera inhabit the coast and estuaries of the Southern United States and of California. See Munuisn.