10 THE GOLDFISH AND ITS CULTURE. 
he informed me that as long as thirty-five or forty years ago 
he used to fish in this pool for wild goldfish, and frequently 
caught one with such protruding eyes (‘bullfrog eyes”, he 
called them) and spherical body, some with remarkably large 
fins (‘swollen and hunchbacked, with their tails all mixed up,” 
his words). He looked upon such specimens as being deformed 
by disease, and to prevent an infection of the others in the pool 
he used to throw them ashore to die. He finally stopped fishing 
in that pool because of there being no more “goldfish” in it. 
It appears that some retired China-trader had, in the first 
half of last century, brought some of the choicest types of 
goldfish with him from China to enjoy them in this little lake 
or pool on his country-seat. After his death this home, being 
somewhat out of the way, was neglected and the fish forgotten 
until the pool was accidentally discovered by my informer. 
Now this one case, to which I could add others, should 
be sufficient to substantiate the author's opinion as recorded 
above. This man, in his ignorance, was destroying as fast as 
he could a product of science, the result of centuries of care 
and ingenuity. 
In open waters, not fished by man, the bright colored or 
slow-moving types fall a prey to fish-eating birds or to enemies 
in the water. In both cases the result is the same, a return to 
the primitive stock, the reproduction of the more modest types, 
their colors and shapes being more protective for a natural wild 
life, is encouraged to the detriment of the bright colors and 
odd shapes of others. 
The goldfish belongs anatomically to the carp family (Cyg7#- 
nidae), a large family of fresh-water fishes distributed all over 
the globe, of which it forms a distinct genus (Carassius), The 
scientific name of the true goldfish is ‘‘Carasstus auratus.” 
