THE 



AQUARIUM 







Fig. 1 B. The Wild Goldfish (Carassius aitratus). 

 By the author after Goode (Drawn by H. L. Todd ) 



There is no question but what gold- 

 fish have a strong tendency towards al- 

 binism; and perhaps many of the forms, 

 from which the cultivated varieties have 

 been bred, were either entirely lacking 

 in dermal pigment — completely albi- 

 nistic — or else largely lacking in it. 

 When the latter condition has prevailed 

 the fish has a whitish appearance in- 

 stead of being dark; sometimes it is 

 yellowish or reddish. Concentration of 

 these colors with some of the darker 

 tints has resulted in blotched individu- 

 als, or even spotted ones with some of 

 the color areas of purer tints. It has 

 been with such fish that the skillful 

 Japanese and a few others have carried 

 on their breeding experiments, and 

 through inteUigent selection have 

 produced some of the most remarkable 

 looking fishes in the world to-day. This 

 has required four or five centuries to 

 accomplish in some cases, while at the 

 present time a few new varieties have 

 been produced with somewhat greater 

 dispatch. Where morphological ab- 

 normalities are present they are to be 

 explained in much the same way. While 

 breeding for color varieties it is likely 

 that some changes in form would also 

 occur, and when sufficiently pronounced 

 to attract the attention of the breeder, 



they have been seized upon and, through 

 careful, selective . breeding, emphasized 

 in the descendants; so we now have im- 

 mense triple tails, carunculated heads, 

 and other monstrosities. 



In my opinion these are more extra- 

 ordinary in appearance than in any way 

 beautiful. Many of the varieties have 

 their eyes bulging out of their heads; 

 some have no dorsal fins; others are so 

 deformed as to be hardly able to swim 

 and can only wiggle through the water. 

 To me, their only redeeming feature is, 

 in many such cases, their brilliant and 

 variegated color-patterns, and the inter- 

 est they have with respect to varietal 

 production through artificial selection 

 and crossing. As a matter of fact, as 

 the late Professor John A. Ryder once 

 pointed out in one of his works, the sev- 

 eral varieties of goldfish produced by 

 man's ingenuity in such operations "are 

 the most profoundly modified of any 

 known race of domesticated animal or- 

 ganisms." 



Fig. 2. An Imported Ryukin. 



Photographed from life by the author from a specimen 



at the Buieau of Fisheries, Washington, D. C. 



By far one of the best books we have 

 on this subject is by Doctor Hugh M. 

 Smith, the present United States Com- 

 missioner of Fisheries at Washington; it 

 is entitled "Japanese Goldfish, their Va- 

 rieties and Cultivation" (W. F. Roberts 

 Company, Washington, D. C), and is a 

 most excellent treatise on the subject 

 with which it deals. Several of the il- 

 lustrations in the jiresent contribution 



