310 Capt. Blakiston 07i the Ornithology of Northern Japan. 



Sea voyages in general have but little interest to the ornitho- 

 logist, and ours on this occasion was no exception to the rule. 

 A few sea-birds only were seen, but not identified ; and a solitary 

 Dove flew on board, and remained about the vessel for some 

 time, one morning. At certain seasons, however, on this pas- 

 sage, land-birds are met with in numbers ; and Captain Scott, 

 during a voyage from China in the month of October, caught 

 some Quails, several of which he kept alive for a few days. The 

 line of migration is probably between the Corea and Nipon, the 

 largest island of the Japanese group. 



On the 25th of July we sighted a small rocky island called 

 " Ku-sima " {sima meaning island, and yama mountain), near 

 the western entrance of the Strait of Tsugar, which separates 

 Yesso from Nipon ; and working up against a stiff breeze, we 

 got under the shelter of the higli lands for the night following. 

 Next morning we commenced beating through " the Straits/' 

 and, the set of the current being strongly in our favour, we, by 

 successive tacks, made good progress towards the Pacific. Passing 

 Matsumai (formerly the chief town of Yesso) early in the fore- 

 noon, we came up to Tsiuka Point at sunset, and by nine p.m. were 

 at the entrance of the Bay of Hakodadi, where it fell calm. This 

 prevented our reaching the anchorage off the town until four the 

 next morning. The harbour was crowded with saucer-shaped 

 native j\inks, clumsy, unpainted, and primitive -looking craft, 

 each with one heavy single mast, used for hoisting a large square 

 sail of cotton canvas. Each of them was secured by at least 

 three or four anchors, and had half-a-dozen more grapple-looking 

 affairs ready at the bows for use in case of bad weather. Each 

 and every one of these junks was so much alike another that, 

 were it not for a slight disparity in size, they might all have been 

 supposed to have been cast in one mould. Numerous boats, with 

 creaking oars, were being pulled about by naked Japanese, en- 

 gaged in loading and unloading junks, while the small "caiques- 

 shaped canoes of the fishermen dotted the harbour in all direc- 

 tions. The only foreign vessel {"foreign " being generally applied 

 to European and American persons and things in the far East), 

 besides our vessel the ' Eva,' was a Russian despatch war- 

 steamer, which lay in deeper water than the junks. We took up 



