THE AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION. 



187 



There are also many genus, and species 

 that are called after my name, such as 

 Hiraseilla, Hirasea and Hirasei. 



At the meeting of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, I was appointed 

 a correspondent of that Academy and in 

 next March they asked me to send my pho- 

 tograph and a sketch of my life. They 

 were going to hang my picture on the wall 



YOICHIRO HIRASE. 



of the museum. I sent them with pleasure, 

 and regarded it a great honor. 



The practice of the shell-collecting in 

 this country is not new. We hear of its ex- 

 istence in the old day. But its way was 

 quite different from what we see to-day, 

 which is a scientific way. As for the clas- 

 sification and their names, they studied 

 carefully. Many chapters are devoted to 

 the descriptions of shells in old day books 

 of natural history. Not a few of old sports 

 which play with shells, such as Kaiawase, 

 and Kaioi, are still remained. Among the 

 old conchological books, Mkuhachi and 

 Kaishi are comparatively large works, 

 which contain thousands of shell figures 

 with their descriptions. These books are 

 all hand-written, appearing sixty years ago. 

 Authors of that day even touched a little 

 upon the study of land shells. If the study 

 had not been stopped until now, the de- 

 velopment and progress of this study will 

 be very great. 



Valuable specimens, however, had almost 

 scattered, and most of them were lost and 

 I know no way to regain them. 



1 though but a poor and uneducated per- 

 son, decided to do what was the will of 

 the old scholars to show the nation the in- 

 terest of the study, as well as to introduce 

 Japaneses mollusks to the world, supplying 

 the world scattered conchologists with good 

 shells. And this latter is my ideal from 

 the first and I am glad to observe that a 

 part of it was already done. 



My collection of shells reached over eight 

 thousand, including foreign species. How- 

 ever, I have no place, at present to put them 

 in order. Of course, of no use they are, if 

 they merely are piled up in the store. 

 Though there is one museum in this city, 

 the collection is chiefly confined to the fine 

 art specimens only and we can have no room 

 for any other specimens to arrange in that 

 museum. Therefore, I am intending to es- 

 tablish in this city an independent concho- 

 logical museum to meet the pressing need of 

 the public. This is one part of my life- 

 work. The other is the publication of a 

 complete illustrated book concerning Japan- 

 ese mollusks. It is almost impossible for me 

 to erect from the first a perfect museum, 

 so my plan is to find a suitable portion of 

 ground and erect there a small temporary 

 building for the use of the museum, in the 

 near future. By the rapid expansion, howev- 

 er, of the economic condition in this country, 

 after the late war, which caused an ad- 

 vance in the price of land, I am perhaps 

 unable to secure the ground in this year, 

 for the fund in preparation for the land will 

 not pay off at present. I have to wait for 

 the fair opportunity. From the lack of suffi- 

 cient number of subscribers to my con- 

 chological magazine, started from January, 

 1907, I suffer no small loss monthly. As we 

 need much more capital for the future ac- 

 complishment, my family are taking every 

 care in wasting nothing, for the accumula- 

 tion of money though bit by bit, for the 

 future need. 



As for my work. I am absolutely inde- 

 pendent on my financial position, while I 

 have a worthy helper in my conchological 

 study whose name is Mr. N. Kato. So the 

 question in point is not the question of dol- 

 lars and cents whether I may fulfill my un- 

 dertakings or not There must be still more 

 endeavor in this respect. 



In religion I was born as a Buddhist. But 

 a few years before my removal I had an op- 

 portunity of hearing about the Christianity 

 and I was deeply touched. After my coming 

 to Kyoto, I was acquainted with Professor M. 

 Gaines, as I said, and also with late Dr. Jos- 

 eph Neesima, LL. D., who is the founder of 

 Doshisha University. Often having heard 

 from them about Christian faith, T began 

 to see the light of Christianity. In 1889, 

 myself, my wife, parents, sister and brother, 

 all on the same day were baptised and be- 

 longed to "Heian Kvokwai," a Congrega- 

 tional church. Now I am one of the found- 



