Salmonide 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 asalmon 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 aliivelis. 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. 
