[1] The more common German name, however, is Distelfink (Thistle-Finch) or Stieglitz.
GOLDFISH (Cyprinus or Carassius auratus), a small fish belonging to the Cyprinid family, a native of China but naturalized in other countries. In the wild state its colours do not differ from those of a Crucian carp, and like that fish it is tenacious of life and easily domesticated. Albinos seem to be rather common; and as in other fishes (for instance, the tench, carp, eel, flounder), the colour of most of these albinos is a bright orange or golden yellow; occasionally even this shade of colour is lost, the fish being more or less pure white or silvery. The Chinese have domesticated these albinos for a long time, and by careful selection have succeeded in propagating all those strange varieties, and even monstrosities, which appear in every domestic animal. In some individuals the dorsal fin is only half its normal length, in others entirely absent; in others the anal fin has a double spine; in others all the fins are of nearly double the usual length. The snout is frequently malformed, giving the head of the fish an appearance similar to that of a bull-dog. The variety most highly prized has an extremely short snout, eyes which almost wholly project beyond the orbit, no dorsal fin, and a very long three- or four-lobed caudal fin (Telescope-fish).
| Telescope-fish. |
The domestication of the goldfish by the Chinese dates back from the highest antiquity, and they were introduced into Japan at the beginning of the 16th century; but the date of their importation into Europe is still uncertain. The great German ichthyologist, M. E. Bloch, thought he could trace it back in England to the reign of James I., whilst other authors fix the date at 1691. It appears certain that they were brought to France, only much later, as a present to Mme de Pompadour, although the de Goncourts, the historians of the mistresses of Louis XV., have failed to trace any records of this event. The fish has since spread over a considerable part of Europe, and in many places it has reverted to its wild condition. In many parts of south-eastern Asia, in Mauritius, in North and South Africa, in Madagascar, in the Azores, it has become thoroughly acclimatized, and successfully competes with the indigenous fresh-water fishes. It will not thrive in rivers; in large ponds it readily reverts to the coloration of the original wild stock. It flourishes best in small tanks and ponds, in which the water is constantly changing and does not freeze; in such localities, and with a full supply of food, which consists of weeds, crumbs of bread, bran, worms, small crustaceans and insects, it attains to a length of from 6 to 12 in., breeding readily, sometimes at different times of the same year.
GOLDFUSS, GEORG AUGUST (1782-1848), German palaeontologist, born at Thurnau near Bayreuth on the 18th of April 1782, was educated at Erlangen, where he graduated Ph.D. in 1804 and became professor of zoology in 1818. He was subsequently appointed professor of zoology and mineralogy in the university of Bonn. Aided by Count G. Münster he issued the important Petrefacta Germaniae (1826-1844), a work which was intended to illustrate the invertebrate fossils of Germany, but it was left incomplete after the sponges, corals, crinoids, echinids and part of the mollusca had been figured. Goldfuss died at Bonn on the 2nd of October 1848.
GOLDIE, SIR GEORGE DASHWOOD TAUBMAN (1846- ), English administrator, the founder of Nigeria, was born on the 20th of May 1846 at the Nunnery in the Isle of Man, being the youngest son of Lieut.-Colonel John Taubman Goldie-Taubman, speaker of the House of Keys, by his second wife Caroline, daughter of John E. Hoveden of Hemingford, Cambridgeshire. Sir George resumed his paternal name, Goldie, by royal licence in 1887. He was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and for about two years held a commission in the Royal Engineers. He travelled in all parts of Africa, gaining an extensive knowledge of the continent, and first visited the country of the Niger in 1877. He conceived the idea of adding to the British empire the then little known regions of the lower and middle Niger, and for over twenty years his efforts were devoted to the realization of this conception. The method by which he determined to work was the revival of government by chartered companies within the empire—a method supposed to be buried with the East India Company. The first step was to combine all British commercial interests in the Niger, and this he accomplished in 1879 when the United African Company was formed. In 1881 Goldie sought a charter from the imperial government (the 2nd Gladstone ministry). Objections of various kinds were raised. To meet them the capital of the company (renamed the National African Company) was increased from £125,000 to £1,000,000, and great energy was displayed in founding stations on the Niger. At this time French traders, encouraged by Gambetta, established themselves on the lower river, thus rendering it difficult for the company to obtain territorial rights; but the Frenchmen were bought out in 1884, so that at the Berlin conference on West Africa in 1885 Mr Goldie, present as an expert on matters relating to the river, was able to announce that on the lower Niger the British flag alone flew. Meantime the Niger coast line had been placed under British protection. Through Joseph Thomson, David Mclntosh, D. W. Sargent, J. Flint, William Wallace, E. Dangerfield and numerous other agents, over 400 political treaties—drawn up by Goldie—were made with the chiefs of the lower Niger and the Hausa states. The scruples of the British government being overcome, a charter was at length granted (July 1886), the National African Company becoming the Royal Niger Company, with Lord Aberdare as governor and Goldie as vice-governor. In 1895, on Lord Aberdare’s death, Goldie became governor of the company, whose destinies he had guided throughout.
The building up of Nigeria as a British state had to be carried on in face of further difficulties raised by French travellers with political missions, and also in face of German opposition. From 1884 to 1890, Prince Bismarck was a persistent antagonist, and the strenuous efforts he made to secure for Germany the basin of the lower Niger and Lake Chad were even more dangerous to Goldie’s schemes of empire than the ambitions of France. Herr E. R. Flegel, who had travelled in Nigeria during 1882-1884 under the auspices of the British company, was sent out in 1885 by the newly-formed German Colonial Society to secure treaties for Germany, which had established itself at Cameroon. After Flegel’s death in 1886 his work was continued by his companion Dr Staudinger, while Herr Hoenigsberg was despatched to stir up trouble in the occupied portions of the Company’s territory,—or, as he expressed it, “to burst up the charter.” He was finally arrested at Onitsha, and, after trial by the company’s supreme court at Asaba, was expelled the country. Prince Bismarck then sent out his nephew, Herr von Puttkamer, as German consul-general to Nigeria, with orders to report on this affair, and when this report was published in a White Book, Bismarck demanded heavy damages from the company. Meanwhile Bismarck maintained constant pressure on the British government to compel the Royal Niger Company to a division of spheres of influence, whereby Great Britain would have lost a third, and the most valuable part, of the company’s territory. But he fell from power in March 1890, and in July following Lord Salisbury concluded the famous “Heligoland” agreement with Germany. After this event the aggressive action of Germany in Nigeria entirely ceased, and the door was opened for a final settlement of the Nigeria-Cameroon frontiers. These negotiations, which resulted in an agreement in 1893, were initiated by Goldie as a means of arresting the advance of France into Nigeria from the direction of the Congo. By conceding to Germany a long but narrow strip of territory between Adamawa and Lake Chad, to which she had no treaty claims, a barrier was raised against French expeditions, semi-military and semi-exploratory, which sought to enter Nigeria from the east. Later French efforts at aggression were made from the western or Dahomeyan side, despite an agreement concluded with France in 1890 respecting the northern frontier.