GOLDFISH AND THEIR CULTURE IN JAPAN. 393 
are poured over the bottom when it is not yet filled with water. When the 
bottom is sufficiently exposed to the sun, the pond is replenished with water, 
which in a few days presents a green color on account of the alge produced 
there. Even after the young fish are put into the aforesaid pond it must be 
fertilized every other day. When they are fed with mijinko obtained else- 
where, one sho (0.4 gallon) of the crustacea is given every day in the case of a 
pond of 30 tsubo (99.2 square meters). 
This is what should be done with the fish when removed to a new pond after 
forty days from the time of their hatching. During these forty days they are 
kept in a concrete pond and are given mijinko in such quantity as may be 
deemed proper. Afterwards the number of mijinko in that pond is ascer- 
tained by immersing something like a white earthenware plate in a corner of it, 
and a supply of food to the fish is kept daily increasing. Feeding the pond with 
fertilizer is intended for no other purpose than producing mijinko, with which 
the fish are to be provided without interruption. 
The longer the fish are fed with mijinko the better it is for them. As 
there is, however, a limit to the supply of mijinko, that wholesome food when 
the young are grown to 4 or 5 bu (1.2 to 1.5 centimeters) gives way to the 
Viviparus (a kind of mollusk found generally in the rice fields) pulverized, or 
the dried chrysalides of silkworms pounded and mixed with starch. As it is 
during the three months of June, July, and August that the fish increase in size 
with great rapidity, the most abundant supply of food is given in this season of 
the year. The extent to which the fish are to be fed, indeed, is judged by the 
color of water in the pond. When the water is green and turbid, it shows that 
the supply of food is plentiful; when it is green and transparent, the supply 
is insufficient. The same is the case with all other colors. 
ORANDA SHISHIGASHIRA. 
A concrete pond is used for hatching the oranda shishigashira. It is 12 
shaku (6.1 meters) long by 5 shaku (1.5 meters) broad with a depth of 7 to 8 sun 
(21.2 to 24.2 centimeters). The eggs having been deposited on bundles of willow- 
tree roots placed in a mud pond, about 50,000 or 60,000 are put into the above- 
mentioned concrete pond to be hatched. The water is removed without fail 
every four or five days, and is even changed every other day when the weather 
is warm. ‘The first selection of the fish takes place after twenty-five days from 
the time of their hatching, when they are about 2 bu (0.6 centimeter) in length. 
About 20,000 of the then superior breeds are retained, the rest being eliminated, 
i.e., sold off. If the number of those first hatched suffices, it is most satisfactory, 
but if it does not, those hatched later are added. If sickness or other cause 
reduces this number, those hatched still later are used also. In that last case 
the fish are made to spawn even in midsummer. Forty days from the time of 
