BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 383 



greatest thickness (near the handle), one-eighteenth inch ; and its great- 

 est breadth a little less than one-half inch. The total length, from point 

 to point in a straight line, is 6J inches. 



How did the knife get there ? is the question that will be asked by 

 those who are not too skeptical to credit the story of its being found as 

 has just been stated. Personally, I neither doubt the finding of the 

 knife, nor the probability of its being found as stated. It is a fairly 

 common occurrence for fishermen to find the sand-launce, or lant, im- 

 bedded in the flesh or the liver of the cod, and dried very hard. I have 

 many times seen lant thus imbedded, and in no case that I remember 

 was the cod any the worse for it.* It is therefore evident that it is 

 possible for the stomach of a cod to be penetrated by a sharp-nosed 

 fish or by an implement it has swallowed, and ultimately for either to 

 work its way through and become imbedded in the flesh, while the 

 wound heals and the stomach goes on to perform its ordinary functions. 



As to where the fish got the knife we can only conjecture, unless 

 some ethnologist can point out its origin. In any case, the finding of 

 such a remarkable implement in such a strange place must be a matter 

 of interest to the ethnologist and naturalist alike. 



Gloucester, Mass., December 31, 1886. 



114.— some: STATII§TIC» OF THE FISHERIES OF IVORTHERN JAPAIV. 



By JOHN C. CUTTER, M. D., 



Frojessor in the Imperial College of Agriculture at Sapporo. 



The Department of the Hokkaido was organized in March, 1886. Its 

 jurisdiction extends over Yessot and the Kooril Islands. Sapporo Ken 

 was one of the three prefectures into which Yesso was divided in 1882. 

 It embraces 3,808 square ris of the 5,056 square ris of Yesso, a ri being 

 equal to 2.44 English miles. Its population in 1883 was 91,971 Jap- 

 anese, Ainos, and Americans. Its coast-line is about 550 miles in ex- 

 tent. Commencing at Abushita on the west coast (Abushita is about 

 40 miles south of Cape Kamoi, the westernmost iwiut of the peninsula 

 jutting into the Sea of Japan south of Strogonov Bay on the western 

 coast of Yesso) it extends northerly to Cape Soya (Strait of La Perouse), 

 thence southeasterly about 70 miles to Tonaiushi, the boundary of 

 Nemuro Ken. The east coast-line commences near the westernmost 

 shore of Volcano Bay (where the Pacific approaches nearest to the shores 

 of the Sea of Japan) and extends east to Cape Yerimo, thence north- 

 easterly about 70 miles to Chokubetsu just east of the mouth of the 

 Tokachi River, the other sea limit of Nemuro Ken. 



* For curious articles found in codfish, see History of Aquatic Animals, text, p. 212. 

 t For an article on the fisheries of Hokkaido, see F. C. Bulletin for 1886, p. 342. 



