PREFACE. 



The present work is the result of a critical study of more than 1,500 

 specimens from Japan and its dependencies, as well as from portions 

 of the adjacent territory on the mainland of eastern Asia. By far the 

 larger number are contained in the herpetological collection of the 

 United States National Museum, and in addition to these I have had 

 here in Washington for direct comparison the extensive collections of 

 the Science College Museum of the Imperial Universit}^ in Tokyo. 

 For this privilege I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the authori- 

 ties of the university, and most especially to Prof. Isao Ijima, in whose 

 immediate charge these collections are. Thanks to the kindness of 

 Prof. C. Ishikawa, I have also had some specimens belonging to the 

 Imperial Museum in Tokyo. Moreover, it was my good fortune dur- 

 ing two brief visits in Tokyo in 1896 and 1897 to be able to examine 

 there a number of specimens in the two institutions mentioned. 



The American museums are not rich in material from the countries 

 covered b}^ this work, but several important specimens are preserved 

 in the museum of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, and the col- 

 lections made by Doctors Furness and Heller in the Riu Kiu Islands 

 are deposited in the Wistar Institute. Philadelphia. A few specimens 

 collected by Mr. dinger in Korea are in the museum of the State Uni- 

 versity of Michigan. For permission to study this material, I am 

 greatly indebted to the authorities of these institutions. 



It would have been impossible to prepare the present volume with- 

 out an examination of the important material of types and other 

 specimens contained in the various nmseums of Europe. I need only 

 mention Leiden, where the material brought home by Buerger and Von 

 Siebold, and upon which Schlegel and Temminck based their account 

 of the reptiles and batrachians in the Fauna Japonica, is preserved, 

 and the British Museum with its vast material and immerous types. 

 It has been my privilege during three visits to Europe to study these and 

 numerous other collections in various cities, and it gives me particular 

 pleasure to acknowledge with sincere thanks the liberality of the 

 authorities of the Smithsonian Institutition and the National Museum 

 in enabling me to undertake these visits for that specific purjiose. 

 It was thus possible for me to study the collections in the Hamburg 



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