HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 



35 



about the room, and so they cannot be an annoy- 

 ance to their owner's friends, while many of them 

 are long-lived, and display much more intelli- 

 gence than they are usually credited with. In 

 beauty, too, they rival in some cases almost any 

 of the birds, so that it is not surprising that quite 

 a fancy for them was developing before the war 

 put a stop to their importation — a fancy that I 

 hope will revive, so lcng as our dealers and other 

 Allies import them, and not the Germans. 



The fancy in aquarium pets was, however, no 

 new thing; fish were the favourite pets of some 

 of the wealthy among the ancient Romans, who 

 in some cases made themselves as extravagantly 

 silly over them as people in the Middle Ages did 

 over their hawks, or as some people do over their 

 dogs now-a-days. Roman amateurs liked big 

 fish, and kept them in tanks; a favourite kind 

 was the muraena, a big sea-eel variegated like a 

 snake, and fiercer than our conger-eel, which is 

 saying a good deal. The ancients, by the way, 

 said there was a standing feud between the mur- 

 aena and the conger, which is quite likely, on the 

 principle that two of a trade never agree. One 

 Roman lady of high degree put ear-rings on her 

 pet muraena, which made quite a nine days' won- 

 der cf the fish, and a male amateur wept so much 

 over the decease of his particular pride of the 

 pond that another mocked at him for it, and was 

 answered that at any rate the mocker had not 

 grieved so much over any of his wives, of whom 

 he had lost more than one. Another wealthy 

 Roman had the playful habit cf throwing any of 

 his slaves who had offended into the muraenas" 

 tank; on one occasion he ordered this fate for a 

 poor wretch who had broken a valuable goblet, 

 when the Emperor Augustus was dining with him. 

 The slave pleaded with the Emperor to intercede 

 for him, saying that it was net dying he minded 

 so much, as the horror of it; that a man should 

 be torn to pieces by fish. But his master, who 

 had once been a slave hirnself, would not listen 

 even to the Emperor, so Augustus put his foot 

 down, and not enly freed the slave, and baulked 

 this cruel design, but had all the master's crockerv 

 smashed and his ponds filled up, showing that 

 even a despot may at times have a better heart 

 than a subject. 



The Romans seem to have specialized on sea- 

 fish, but for most people now-a-days fresh-water 

 fish are the only suitable kinds to keep, and the 

 familiar gold-fish, when of a good colour, cannot 

 be beaten for beauty, and it is also lively, which 

 some very lovely fish are not. Gold-fish are very 

 dear just now, costing about a shilling an inch — 

 big ones always were dear, even in normal times, 

 but this price was paid recejntly for (four-inch 

 specimens. The gold, pied, and silver ones dc 

 not represent the natural colour, which is bronze, 

 and one or two of this colour will set off the bril- 



liance of the other varieties. I know of one 

 bronze specimen which has been in a small indoor 

 tank for at least six years, but they live much 

 longer than this, though of no use for breeding 

 after a few years old. Those at Hampton Court 

 — where- when I saw them they were as big as 

 herrings — must have been a good age. 



In India they thrive as well as in England; 

 and at the Sikh temple at Dehra Dun they had a 

 very large tank well stocked with them. The 

 original stock had been given them by a European 

 and the natives much admired them, as they were 

 only familiar in Calcutta. There; they were 

 hawked about for sale in bottles, and it was easy 

 to get the fine fan-tailed Japanese breed, which 

 is rare' over here. The Japanese have got other 

 remarkable varieties, as they are great goldfish 

 fanciers; some of these breeds have warty heads, 

 and look very ugly to an outsider. The native 

 home cf the goldfish .is China, but it has been 

 introduced, and become quite wild, in other coun- 

 tries, at any rate in Madagascar and the United 

 States. When thus restored to> its natural con- 

 dition, it goes back to the original bronze colour, 

 and in America is even caught and sold as "Sand 

 Perch" ! Those in English ponds, however, keep 

 up the golden tint; but I should think this would 

 require some weeding out of the undesirable col- 

 ours. All goldfish, by the way, are hatched dark, 

 but the better they are the sooner they assume the 

 fashionable tint. 



Next to the goldfish I should put the Paradise 

 fish, which, like the goldfish,,, is a Chinese fish, 

 but belongs to a quite different family, the gold- 

 fish being one of the carp family. There are, by 

 the way, golden varieties of other fish of the carp 

 family also; the common carp, the tench, and the 

 orfe, which is very like a dace. They are not, 

 however, nearly so rich in colour as the real gold- 

 fish, and I have only seen one white common carp 

 and one white orfe, and never a white tench; nor 

 have I seen any of these fish pied with black as 

 goldfish often are, though tench and orfe may 

 have dark spots. It is curious that white vane- 

 ties of fish seem never to have pink eyes^ and that 

 goldfish, though often tri-oolcured, red, black 

 and white, are so rarely black and white only; I 

 have only seen two or three thus marked. 



To return to Paradise fish; they are very 

 different in shape from goldfish , being shorter 

 and deeper, with the long fins on the back and belly 

 much longer behind than in front, the opposite of 

 what is seen among fish generally. As the fish 

 is a rather short and deep one, this formation of 

 the fins does not improve its appearance, though 

 the adult male specimens have a quaint graceful- 

 ness of their own in their long streaming tails. 

 The Paradise fish, however, yields to none in the 

 charm cf its colour; on a ground of bronze are 



