Up to the time the fish is two or three years old, the head does not show any peculiar features, 

 but it then begins to develop a mass having the appearance of a warty tumor. In some specimens 

 the warts are of uniform size and very regular distribution, in others they are irregular in size and 

 shape. The warts are soft to the touch, and represent simply the enlargement of the normal 

 papillae of the skin of the head ; and so far as known the mass does not take on any malignant 

 character. The amount of surface covered by the growth varies, and this, together with differences 



in the warts themselves, gives rise to several subvarieties. In the lion-head proper the entire head 

 except the lower jaw is covered with large red, pink, or white warts, and the head and snout are 

 thus greatly broadened. In the form known as the tokin, or capped or hooded goldfish, there is on 

 top of the head a mass of warts projecting one-half to three-fifths of an inch above the surface and 

 sharply defined all around. The warty growth is sometimes entirely white, and may contrast 

 strongly with the colors of adjacent parts. Fish thus colored are called hiragashira, or white-heads. 

 As white warts are nearly always smaller than red warts and the growth is thus less prominent, 

 these fish are known also as shiragashira, or flat-heads. 



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