The Wakin 



Japanese Goldfish. Common Goldfish 



The name wakin, meaning Japanese goldfish, is applied to the simplest and most primitive 

 cultivated variety, from which all the others have been directly or indirectly produced. As it was 

 introduced from China, it can not properly be called Japanese, but it had been so long known and 

 cultivated in Japan that the people of that country were doubtless justified in so designating" it, 

 especially when it became necessary to distinguish it from breeds or varieties introduced from 

 Korea and the Liukiu or Ryukyu Islands and named after those places. 



The wakin as known today in Japan. China. Europe, and America is doubtless quite similar 

 if not identical in all essential tespects to the earliest examples brought from China. 



In form the wakin is moderately elongate and compressed, and the shape and size of its fins 

 differ but little from the wild species. The caudal fin, however, may be considerably modified from 

 the simple vertical type. The scales are large and their edges are prominent. The color is most 

 variable, ranging from pure black to pure white or silvery, with uniform gray, brown, olive, 

 vermilion, orange, golden, and yellow as intermediate colors, which are often variegated with black 

 or while. The typical wakin in Japan is bright red, often with larger or smaller areas of pearly 

 or silvery white. 



A remarkable feature of the Japanese goldfish that does not occur in natuie in any species of 

 fishes and is not known to exist in any other cultivated fishes is that in many of the more highly 

 cultivated forms the caudal and anal fins, instead of being single or unpaired, are double or 

 paired. The caudal is the fin most subject to variation, and even in the wakin it begins to exhibit 



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