THE GOLDFISH 



25 



Fig. 9 

 Single Tail 



Fig. 9A 

 Tripod Tail 



Fig. 10 

 Web Tail 



Fig. 11 

 Double Tail 



Evolution of Double Tail or Fantail Goldfish 



The origin of those weird telescopic-eyed goldfishes has been the 

 subject of a number of fanciful theories, but there can be little doubt 

 that the strain was produced by selective breeding from the individ- 

 uals which showed more or less bulging eyes. This would be the cor- 

 rect scientific theory, and a recent discovery helps confirm it. The 

 goldfish belongs in the same family as the minnows (Cyprinoids), and 

 a minnow has been found in Nature with enormous and perfectly 

 developed telescopic eyes, proving that the break is a natural one that 

 might be expected to occur occasionally, and from which a strain of the 

 same kind could be established, especially in a subject so readily bred 

 as the goldfish. The specimen referred to is not a case of the disease 

 called "pop-eyes," common to the sunfish and others. The eyes are 

 purely telescopic and have been so determined by Henry W. Fowler, 

 an ichthyologist of world repute who has specialized on the Cyprinoids. 

 The accompanying photographic reproduction of the fish is convinc- 

 ing, but the preserved specimen can be seen at the Academy of Nat- 

 ural Sciences of Philadelphia. In life the fish was shown in a number 

 of local aquarium society exhibitions. 



By careful selective breeding, types have become fairly well fixed, 

 but the goldfish has a strong tendency to revert far back to ancestral 

 types, in form as well as color, often to the annoyance of the breeder. 

 One of the most interesting things about a spawning of goldfishes is 

 the tremendous variety in the color. In a lot of a thousand young 

 scaleless fishes there may not be two alike, and none may resemble 

 either parent. That this is not ahvays so is a self-evident fact, else 

 selective breeding would be without results. 



The accomplishments of Oriental breeders seem only to be lim- 

 ited by the scope of the imagination. Through the most patient 

 efforts, not only of a lifetime, but of several generations of a family, 

 such changes have been wrought in form and color that some of the 

 breeds do not seem to even distantly resemble the common goldfish. 

 That this is so is often evidenced by the fact that strangers to the fancy 

 on first seeing a collection of highly developed fishes want to knew zvhai 



