The Days of a Man 1900 



But the birds are wholly devoted to their duties and 

 rush at the fish with the eagerness of a retriever. 

 They dislike strangers, however, croaking hoarsely 

 at them. 



A general Fishing over, the ayu, a species of yellow trout 

 Plecoglossus - - were saved for our feast, while the 

 minnows and sculpins were thrown back to the birds, 

 which gulped them with exuberant delight. Among 

 the species secured that day was one dace new to 

 science, which we named Leuciscus phalacrocorax for 

 its captor - - Phalacrocorax. I was interested to 

 notice native in the river bed an abundance of the 

 day lily - - Hemerocallis fulva - - common in old- 

 fashioned gardens in America. 



Returning to the city, we passed two beautiful 

 Shinto temples, and near them was a monument so 

 old that no one in the party could read its inscrip- 

 tions. Meanwhile the skylarks sang in the open, and 

 Japanese crows, most sarcastic of birds, jeered at us 

 from the trees. 



Next day Mitsukuri hired a fishing boat in which 



we tried our luck with the rest of the fleet in Tokyo 



Bay. We caught very little, however, though we 



The did as well as the others. On an island in the harbor 



for"*"* stands an ancient fort as fantastically shaped as a 



negligible modern dreadnought. 'With that," said our host, 



"old Japan tried to shut out Western civilization." 



But civilization ignored the fortress as negligible, 



entering the country not by force of arms but by 



trade and education each in itself a form of 



brotherhood. 



At Mitsukuri's request I spoke without interpreter 

 to the advanced students of the Imperial University, 

 on Agassiz as a teacher. My audience gave appar- 



