INTRODUCTION. 



DURING 1889-'90, the publisher of this Catalogue spent nearly 

 a year in Japan, and some weeks in China. The journey was 

 in quest of health and the pleasure of travel. Much time was de- 

 voted to making a typical collection of Japanese art work of many 

 kinds. I had been, for some years before visiting Japan, much 

 interested in its history, political evolution, and in the marvellous 

 delicacy of many of its art products, and had studied and collected 

 the latter with interest. 



The result was a collection of over fifteen thousand objects in 

 metal, lacquer, pottery, bronzes, fabrics, etc. This collection has 

 been catalogued, mounted and presented to the Detroit Museum of 

 Art. 



Being also interested in natural history, I attempted to make a 

 collection of the mollusks of the country, commencing first with 

 such species as I found in the markets of Tokyo and Yokohama, 

 and finally employing an intelligent Japanese fisherman — Morita 

 geto— who traversed the entire east coast from Tokyo, along Sagama 

 and Saruga and the coasts of the Provinces Kii, Awa and Toza, 

 along the north shore of the Inland Sea as far as Bingo, and, by aid 

 of the fisherfolk, obtained nearly a thousand forms of marine life. 



An account by ]\Ir. J. E. Ives of the Echinoderms, Crustacea 

 and Pycnogonida collected, will be found in Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. 

 Philadelphia for 1891, p. 210, plates YII-XII ; and some of the 

 Mollusks are described and illustrated by Mr. Pilsbry in the same 

 volume, pp. 165, 471, plates IV, XVII, XVIII, XIX. 



The Japanese fishermen, by the use of drag and dredge-nets, 

 gather not only fish, but largely mollusks, working in water some- 

 times as deep as thirty fathoms. 



The region visited lies between 83° and 36° north latitude, 

 and 132° and 141° east longitude, on the east coast of the Japanese 

 Islands. Here the Kuro-Shiwo or "Pacific Gulf Stream" flows 

 north-easterly, and the presence of this warm current accounts, possi- 

 bly, for the occasional finding of strictly tropical species. 



(V) 



