Goldfish and Geography 



Anna Botsford Comstock 



If we could be transported back in time and place to where the 

 ancestors of the goldfish in our aquarium swim wild, it would be 

 one of the most interesting journeys imaginable. For it might 

 take us back into ancient China and along the streams which flow 

 into those magnificent rivers which sweep over the high mountains 

 in eastern China to the great rich plains of the coast. And we 

 should pass strange cities beset with beautiful temples, and we 

 should see Chinese men dressed in their robes of silk, the color of 

 peach blossoms or apple blossoms, as blue as the sky or purple as the 

 violets. And we should find, playing by the banks of the stream, 

 little children dressed in every color of the rainbow, and the little 

 girls might perhaps be toddling about on their tiny bandaged feet. 



And if we should find this ancestral fish, we would find with it 

 many companions in this picturesque stream, because the Chinese 

 have been the best managers of fish in the world. We, in America, 

 are thousands of years behind the Chinese in intelligence in the art 

 of preserving fish. From times too ancient to be recorded in his- 

 tory, the Chinese have yearly taken loads of water in which there is 

 a spawn of fish, and have carried and emptied them into safe ponds 

 where the newly hatched fry could be fed, usually upon lentils or 

 yolks of eggs. The result is that although China is over-populated, 

 having at least three hundred persons to the square mile, yet the 

 rivers of China are full of fish of all kinds, while we with our scant 

 population of scarcely twenty people to the square mile have 

 almost exhausted the supply of fish in our rivers and lakes. 



And this ancestor of our goldfish in its native stream is not gold 

 at all, but is olive-green above and yellow below, for a gold colored 

 fish could not have lived very long, — it would have been swallowed 

 by some wild duck, goose or swan, which occur in great numbers in 

 Chinese streams ; or a pelican would have gobbled it up in its great 

 fish basket . Or a fish merling, which the Chinese train for catching 

 fish for them just as we train dogs for game, would have captured 

 our fish. But its safe green color saved it and its descendants were 

 taken by the skilful Chinese and through much breeding and care- 

 ful selection were changed in color to gold and silver. And if by 

 chance, we raise goldfish in our aquaria we find when they are 

 small they have dull colors like their old ancestors ; and if our gold- 



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