GOLDFISH AND THEIR CULTURE IN JAPAN. 389 
lar, and a short body. For instance, to be perfect in form, the body should 
be about 1 sun (3 centimeters) in length when it is 1 sun 5 bu (4.5 centimeters) 
in breadth. The body as long as broad comes next. As to the form of the 
caudal fin, it should be long and thin, at the same time the rays being fine 
and slender and the peduncle of the tail thick. To have the best coloration, 
it is essential that both the belly and the back should be well dappled and the 
tail vermilion colored. In former times when goldfish were kept in a china 
basin to be looked at from above only, those having the finest dapples on the 
back were most highly appreciated. Nowadays, however, the fish are kept in a 
glass tank to be viewed from the sides, hence the necessity of having fine dapples 
on the sides and downwards. The greatest desideratum for the ryukin is that 
it should have nothing abnormal in the caudal fin. 
When the fish having a two-rudder tail are selected for breeding purposes, the 
tail becomes long in the offspring, but when the fish having a one-rudder tail are 
used for the same purposes, the tail becomes short in the offspring. Those 
having a long body and a short tail are regarded with the least favor. The 
second requisite for the ryukin is that the form of the body should be satis- 
factory, the shape of the head coming last. 
A mud pond is used not only for rearing the ryukin but also for its spawn- 
ing. Equal numbers of males and females of this variety are used as breeding 
fish, and 800 fish 3 years old are placed in a pond having an area of forty tsubo 
(132.2 square meters) with a depth of 2 shaku 5 sun (76 centimeters). An 
ample supply of food is given them in the preceding year. In order that suffi- 
ciently developed offspring may be put up for sale at the earliest possible date, 
the breeders vie with one another in causing the parent fish to deposit their eggs 
with little delay. Many of the offspring become striped like a tiger before their 
original steel color fades into white, and it is at this intermediate stage of their 
coloring that those inferior breeds destined to become white can be sold with the 
greatest profit. A full supply of fertilizer is required in the mud pond in which 
the breeding fish are kept, as it produces more plankton for them. About the 
end of March, when its temperature rises to 15° C., the water of the pond is 
renewed. In this season of the year, when the weather is very changeable, the 
fish require the utmost care. It is good for them if the temperature of water in 
the pond is higher than 15° C., but a lower temperature has a bad effect. A 
rising temperature accelerates the hatching of eggs, but a falling one retards 
it from two to three days, thereby producing a diversity of size in the offspring, 
an effect that should be avoided. When the eggs are deposited thereon, the 
bundles already referred to are removed to one or two ponds. In the case of 
its size being 4 tsubo (13.2 square meters), one pond may suffice to receive the 
eggs, but in the case of its being only 2 tsubo (6.6 square meters) the eggs are 
