Salmonidas 



117 



filled with gravel, with straggling willows, showy day-lilies, 

 orange amaryllis, and the little sky-blue spider-flower, which 

 the Japanese call chocho, or butterfly-weed. 



In the Tamagawa are many fishes: shining minnows in the 

 white ripples, dark catfishes in the pools and eddies, and little 

 sculpins and gobies lurking under the stones. Trout dart 

 through its upper waters, and at times salmon run up from the 

 sea. 



But the one fish of all its fishes is the ayu. This is a sort 

 of dwarf salmon, running in the spring and spawning in the 

 rivers just as a salmon does. But it is smaller than any salmon, 

 not larger than a smelt, and its flesh is white and tender, and 

 so very delicate in its taste and odor that one who tastes it 

 crisply fried or broiled feels that he has never tasted real fish 

 before. In all its anatomy the ayu is a salmon, a dwarf of its 

 kind, one which our ancestors in England would have called 

 a "samlet." Its scientific name is Plecoglossus altivelis. Ple- 

 coglossus means plaited tongue, and altivelis, having a high sail; 

 for the skin of the tongue is plaited or folded in a curious way, 

 and the dorsal fin is higher than that of the salmon, and one poeti- 

 cally inclined might, if he likes, call it a sail. The teeth of the 

 ayu are very peculiar, for they constitute a series of saw-edged 

 folds or plaits along the sides of the jaws, quite different from 

 those of any other fish whatsoever. 



In size the ayu is not more than a foot to fifteen inches 

 long. It is like a trout in build, and its scales are just as small. 

 It is light yellowish or olive in color, growing silvery below. 

 Behind its gills is a bar of bright shining yellow, and its adipose 

 fin is edged with scarlet. The fins are yellow, and the dorsal 

 fin shaded with black, while the anal fin is dashed with pale 

 red. 



So much for the river and the ayu. It is time for us to go 

 afishing. It is easy enough to find the place, for it is not more 

 than ten miles out of Tokyo, on a fine old farm just by the ancient 

 Temple of Tachikawa, with its famous inscribed stone, given by 

 the emperor of China. 



At the farmhouse, commodious and hospitable, likewise clean 

 and charming after the fashion of Japan, we send for the boy 

 who brings our fishing-tackle. 



