GOLD CARP. 



S65 



of reanimation ; the fins quiver, the gills open, the fish gra- 

 dually turns itself on its belly, and moves slowly round the 

 vessel, till at length, completely revived, it swims briskly 

 about,"* 



But to return to the fish before us : I need not occupy 

 space by attempting to describe a species so well known, 

 and of which the variations in colour, fin-rays, and even 

 in the fins, are so numerous, as to appear to bear some pro- 

 portion to the degree and extent of the domestication. 

 M. dc Sauvigny, in his Histoire Naturelle des Dorades de 

 la Chine, published at Paris in 1780, has given coloured 

 representations of eighty-nine varieties of this Carp, exhibit- 

 ing almost every possible shade or combination of silver, 

 brilliant orange, and purple. I have referred to variations 

 in the fins themselves. These fishes are sometimes seen 

 with double anal fins, and others with triple tails : when 

 this occurs, it is generally at the expense of the whole or 

 part of some other fin : thus the specimens with triple tails 

 are frequently without any portion of the dorsal fin, and 

 such specimens have been figured by Bloch and others. 

 Among two dozen Gold-fish for sale in London, were some 

 with dorsal fins extending more than half the length of the 

 back : some, on the contrary, had dorsal fins of five or six 

 rays only, and one specimen without any dorsal fin whatever ; 

 yet this fish appeared to preserve its perpendicular position 

 with the same ease as any of the others. This induced me 

 to make an experiment, in order to ascertain whether the 

 sudden privation of the dorsal fin would produce any more 

 apparent inconvenience than was observable in the specimen 

 just referred to. 



For this purpose I attended at the Zoological Society's 

 Garden a short time before the hour at which the Otter was 

 fed daily with his accustomed meal of living fish. Nine or 



* T. S. Bushnan's Introduction to the Study of Nature. 



