systematic course of selective breeding in the 

 United States it has not come to my knowledge. 

 It is certainly desirable that it should be under- 

 taken as they are more graceful than the fan- 

 tails and quite as beautiful. There is no reason 

 why we should not, having the wonderful Asiatic 

 developments of hundreds of years to start from^ . 

 produce other new and beautiful varieties both 

 of form and color. 



It is quite certain also that none of the finer 

 specimens are exported from Japan or China as 

 they command higher prices there than could be 

 secured for them here. It is with long tailed 

 tish as with the long tailed fowls. The Japanese 

 have chickens with tails as much as eighteen 

 feet long, but such as go out of the country are 

 "culls" or inferior stock. The number of them 

 that are produced is small and are eagerly sought 

 for at home. At the Columbian Exposition there 

 were stuffed specimens with tails thirteen or 

 fourteen feet long. 



It is for this reason that some of the fish 

 cropping out among the progeny of those im- 

 ported are so much superior to their immediate 

 progenitors. They are reversions to ancestral 

 stock such as occur with all animal forms in 

 accordance with "Mendels Law" of heredtiy. 



In 1905 a Japanese Fish culturist, a graduate 

 of the Imperial School of Fish Culture came to 

 New York bringing with him a lot of sample 

 specimens of a proposed breeding stock consist- 

 ing, so far as I can remember, only of scale and 

 scaleless fantails and lion-heads. Of course 

 there was a great variety of color and form, but 

 there were none that were superior to those we 

 had been importing for many years, and they 

 were inferior to those being bred here by 

 amateurs. His object was to find an opportunity 

 to take up goldfish breeding in this country. He 

 was referred to me by the U. S. Fish Commis- 

 sion, and I went to New York to meet him: As 

 is was necessary to talk through an interpretor 

 I was unable to get much information from him. 

 But I endeavored to induce certain goldfish 

 breeders to associate with him and thus improve 

 our methods, but all were afraid of giving him 

 a foothold. _ 



60 ^^ 



