kind is to revert to the original form or type. 

 Nowhere in Nature is there a vertebrate with 

 more than two pairs of limbs yet these with 

 paired anal and caudal have four pairs, two of 

 them the result of selective breeding from 

 deformities which have been produced originally 

 no doubt, as has often been pointed out, by add- 

 ling the eggs. They are anatomically eight-limb- 

 ed vertebrates. 



These extra and extra large fins are a great 

 impediment to locomotion. They handicap the 

 fish both in catching its food and in escaping its 

 enemies. Consequently the straight tails possess 

 great advantages in the struggle for existance, 

 and nature always works to perpetuate whatever 

 is of advantage. There is, therefore, where a 

 proper course of selective breeding is not 

 pursued a constant deterioration, and an increas- 

 ing number of straight tails. In ponds, unless 

 very small and so contructed that every fish can 

 be taken out, this is certain to be the result. 

 For this reason the stock of the then U. S. Fish 

 Commission deteriorated until finally it was no 

 better than the common goldfish sold in the 

 stores at ten cents each. 



In all the United States today notwithstanding 

 the thousands imported every year many of 

 which go into the hands of the breeders there 

 are no pond-bred goldfish of really good quality, 

 the only fine fish being produced by the ama- 

 teur breeders. I have reason to believe that this 

 is also the case in China, Japan and India. 



It is a question, with me at least, whether 

 any attempt has ever been made to breed straight 

 tailed fish in those countries, as there does not 

 seem to be ijny evidence in their printed 

 descriptions and illustrations of their types of 

 goldfish, or in their decorative figures, that this 

 type is held in esteem there. It is not the most 

 graceful and beautiful that seems to attract them 

 so much as the grotesque and abnormal. 

 At all events, as with us, there would be plenty 

 of straight tails cropping out among the fantails 

 to supply any probable demand. 



If there has been any attempt to breed 

 "Comets" distinctively as such by pursuing a 



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