144 SPECIES AND BREEDS. 
organization, but in adapting it to suit his own 
caprices, is that of the Golden Carp, so frequently 
seen in bowls and tanks as the ornament of draw- 
ing-rooms and gardens. Not only an infinite 
variety of spotted, striped, variegated colors has 
been produced in these Fishes, but, especially 
among the Chinese, so famous for their morbid 
love of whatever is distorted and warped from its 
natural shape and appearance, all sorts of changes 
have been brought about in this single Species. 
A book of Chinese paintings, showing the Golden 
Carp in its varieties, represents some as short and 
stout, others long and slender, —some with the 
ventral side swollen, others hunchbacked, —some 
with the mouth greatly enlarged, while in others 
the caudal fin, which, in the normal condition 
of the Species, is placed vertically at the end of 
the tail, and is forked like those of other Fishes, 
has become crested and arched, or is double or 
crooked, or has swerved in some other way from 
its original pattern. But, in all these variations, 
there is nothing which recalls the characteristic 
specific differences among the representatives of 
the Carp Family, which, in their wild state, are 
very monotonous in their appearance all the 
world over. ; 
Were it appropriate to accumulate evidence 
here upon this subject, I could bring forward 
many more examples quite as striking as those 
