312 Capt. Blakiston on the Ornithology of Northern Japan. 



Mr. Maximovitch and myself. Mr. Maximovitch is a naturalist, 

 but better known perhaps as a botanist, in the employ of the 

 Russian Government, who, having been in Siberia and on the 

 Amoor, was at Hakodadi during my stay there. His residence 

 was of much longer duration than my own, and, as will be ob- 

 served, the existence of many species is given entirely on his 

 authority. 1 have, however, taken care to note when the fact 

 is doubtful ; because his only means of naming specimens at the 

 time was by referring to a copy of the ' Fauna Japonica,^ in the 

 possession of the Russian Consul. Besides, most of his birds 

 were packed up for going to St. Petersburg when I made his 

 acquaintance, and consequently I had not an opportunity of exa- 

 mining them. He will publish the results of his labours on his 

 return to Russia. 



Hakodadi is situated at the southern extremity of Yesso, the 

 northernmost island of the Japan group, on a small mountain 

 peninsula jutting into the Strait of Tsugar, and is connected with 

 the mainland by a narrow sandy isthmus, on the eastern shore of 

 which break the rollers from the broad Pacific, while it forms a 

 fine land-locked bay, and shelters a convenient harbour, on the 

 other. The peninsula is a mountain rising 1100 feet above the 

 sea, and is called " Hakodadi Head." On three sides its slopes 

 are precipitous, and an iron-bound coast gives it such natural 

 strength that it might, with little labour, be converted into a 

 Gibraltar. In fact, most visitors are struck with the natural 

 similarity of the place, on a small scale, to the gate of the Medi- 

 terranean. On the northern side is the town, the present seat 

 of the Government of the island of Yesso, and the residence of 

 the Consuls of Russia, England, and America, and of a few 

 merchants of the two latter countries. It is small, but rapidly 

 increasing in mercantile importance. The readers of 'The 

 Ibis ' will not care to know much concerning how and why this 

 is so, nor would statistics of its trade in dried fish, shell-fish, 

 sea-weed, oil, and timber, or the natural resources of the ad- 

 joining country in the way of coal, lead, iron, or sulphur, be of 

 much interest to ornithologists ; and therefore it will sufiice to 

 say that the town is a collection of low wooden houses, over- 

 topped with the shining tiled roofs of a few temples, and broken 



