Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/538

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526
Zoology.

the inmates of all such places had been introduced as early as 1874 in imitation of European ways, that each house and each separate inmate of each house is heavily taxed, and that there is severe police control over all, we have mentioned all that need here be said on a subject which could only be adequately discussed in the pages of a medical work. Those interested in this particular department of sociology will find full and curious details in The Nightless City, published anonymously at Yokohama in 1899.


Zoology. Japan is distinguished by the possession of some types elsewhere extinct—for example, the giant salamander and also as being the most northerly country inhabited by the monkey, which here ranges as high as the 41st degree of latitude, in places where the snow often drifts to a depth of fifteen or twenty feet. But in its main features the Japanese fauna resembles that of North China, Korea, and Manchuria,—one indication among many of the direction in which the ancient land connection of Japan with the Asiatic continent must be sought. The Japanese fauna, both terrestrial and marine, is unusually rich. Take a single instance:—there are already 137 species of butterflies known, as against some 60 in Great Britain, and over 4,000 species of moths, as against some 2,000 in Great Britain.

The chief mammals are the monkey (Inuus speciosus Tem.), ten species of bats, six species of insectivorous animals, three species of bears, the badger, the marten, the mink (itachi), the wolf, the fox, two species of squirrel, the rat, the hare, the wild-boar, the otter, a species of stag, and a species of antelope. Most of our domestic animals are also met with, but not the ass, the sheep, or the goat. Other missing animals are the wild cat and the hedgehog. No less than 359 species of birds have been enumerated. We can only here call attention to the uguisu (Cellia cantans T. and Schl.)—a nightingale having a different note from ours—to the handsome copper pheasant, to the long-tailed fowls (see Article so entitled), and to the cranes and herons so beloved by the artists of Japan.