62 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. ix. 



nent ? No one knows, and if in our efforts to find a solution of 

 the problem in their tombs their spirits feel aggrieved at the 

 desecration, they may find some comfort in the reflection that 

 the graves of millionaires are equally unsafe in this, the day of 

 our later and boasted civilization. 



Prof. Edward S. Morse, we learn from the New York 

 Nation, has written an interesting paper on the " Traces of an 

 Early Race in Japan," which throws light on a subject hitherto 

 ■wholly obscure. A race of men called Ainos are believed to 

 have come down from Kamtchatka and to have taken possession 

 of Japan, which they held until displaced in their turn by the 

 Japanese from the south. Of the two races, the Ainos and the 

 Japanese, authentic records exist ; but nothing has been known 

 concerning the ancient people whose territory was appropriated 

 by the Ainos. The only knowledge obtained of them has been 

 ingeniously acquired by Mr. Morse by a careful -study of " shell- 

 heaps" in all respects similar to those found along the shores of 

 Denmark, New England, and Florida. The deposit discovered 

 by Mr. Morse near Tokio contained pottery and broken bones, 

 many of which were human. It is generally admitted by ethno- 

 logists that a people that has once acquired the art of pottery 

 will always retain it ; but as neither the Esquimaux, the Kara- 

 tchatdales, nor the Ainos are essentially earthen-pot-makers, these 

 remains naturally point to the former existence of a race in 

 Japan who preceded the Ainos. Again, both the human and the 

 deer bones found in this shell-heap were broken in a manner to 

 facilitate the extraction of the marrow, or to enable them to be 

 placed in a cooking-pot, a circumstance which points to the 

 existence of cannibalism among the people by whom the shell- 

 heaps were made. On consulting Japanese scholars and archaeo- 

 logists, Mr. Morse learned that the Ainos were not only not 

 cannibals, but were of an especially gentle disposition. The 

 existence of an ancient race of cannibals in Japan before the 

 occupation of that country by the Ainos is, therefore, made very 

 probable. We hope to see another paper before long containg an 

 account of Prof. Morse's later researches. — Nature. 



A Gigantic Conularia of the Niahara Group of 

 Hamilton, Ont. — In 1872, two large specimens of Conularia 

 were found at Hamilton, Ontario, and since, a few fragments 



