SALMON. Photographs by Atsushi Sakurai. Introduction by John N. Cole.

(1981) 1984 1st US edition. Oblong 4to (267 x 225mm). Ppvi,96. Colour photographs throughout. Dark blue cloth, upper board and spine titled in silver-gilt.

Good colour photographs of pacific salmon - from spawning to spawning". Of all the migrations in the animal kingdom, none is more heroic or remarkable than the spawning run of the salmon. In this beautiful book, the Japanese icthyologist / photographer Atsushi Sakurai documents the arduous and dramatic journey of the salmon as they make their way from ocean to their spawning sites upriver. In brilliant color photographs, he follows the salmon from their energetic, exuberant leaps at the mouth of the river; through their navigation of treacherous shallows, rapids, and falls; to their arrival at the same stretch of water where they hatched and where they will spawn and die. He captures, close up, the hatching of salmon eggs under the winter ice, the growth of the fry, and the moment when the young salmon leave their natal stream and descend to the rich feeding grounds in the sea to begin the migratory cycle once more. In these sixty-five arresting photographs - and in the graceful, informed text by John N. Cole - we are given a breathtaking glimpse into the mystery of salmon migration and their extraordinary last rite, and an eloquent argument for the protection of these wild fish and their rivers".