all either killed or frightened away during the late sixties, when they ceased to be preserved as a royal bird. The pheasants have sadly diminished in number, owing to wholesale slaughter with the object of exporting their feathers to grace ladies' bonnets in foreign lands; and various species of small birds are now sharing the same fate, as many as a hundred thousand at a time being, it is said, shipped off that the tiny feathers may be dyed various colours and set to various uses in female adornment or art manufacture. Such are some of the drawbacks of foreign intercourse and of cheap and rapid transport. Europeanisation is not all gain. The European tourist seeks distant lands with intent to admire nature and art. But nature is laid waste for his sake or for the sake of his friends at home, while art is degraded and ultimately destroyed by the mere fact of contact with alien influences.
Books recommended. The above Article is founded chiefly on Rein's Japan, p. 157 et seq. Rein's treatment of the fishes is specially full, but a good résumé of the other classes is given, together with references to the chief authorities on each.—See also Blakiston and Pryer's Catalogue of the Birds of Japan, printed in Vol. X. Part I. of the "Asiatic Transactions;" Pryer's Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of Japan, in Vol. XI. Part II. and Vol. XII. Part II. of the same, with Additions and Corrections in Vol. XIII. Part I.; also the same author's Rhopalocera Nihonica and J. H. Leech's Butterflies from Japan. Both these are beautifully illustrated.
