T'he Days of a Man 



D900 



,'/ general 

 feast 



The 



ancient 

 fort a 

 negligible 

 barrier 



But the birds are wholly devoted to their duties and 

 rush at the fish with the eagerness of a retriever. 

 They dislike strangers, however, croaking hoarsely 

 at them. 



Fishing over, the ayu, a species of yellow trout — 

 Plecoglossus — were saved for our feast, while the 

 minnows and sculpins were thrown back to the bird", 

 which gulped them with exuberant delight. Among 

 the species secured that day was one dace new to 

 science, which we named Leuciscus phalacrocorax for 

 its captor — Phalacrocorax. I was interested to 

 notice native in the river bed an abundance of the 

 day lily — Hemerocallis fulva — common in old- 

 fashioned gardens in America. 



Returning to the city, we passed two beautiful 

 Shinto temples, and near them was a monument so 

 old that no one in the party could read its inscrip- 

 tions. Meanwhile the skylarks sang in the open, and 

 Japanese crows, most sarcastic of birds, jeered at us 

 from the trees. 



Next day Mitsukuri hired a fishing boat in which 

 we tried our luck with the rest of the fleet in Tokyo 

 Bay. We caught very little, however, though we 

 did as well as the others. On an island in the harbor 

 stands an ancient fort as fantastically shaped as a 

 modern dreadnought. "With that," said our host, 

 **old Japan tried to shut out Western civilization." 

 But civilization ignored the fortress as negligible, 

 entering the country not by force of arms but by 

 trade and education — each in itself a form of 

 brotherhood. 



At Mitsukuri's request I spoke without interpreter 

 to the advanced students of the Imperial University, 

 on Agassiz as a teacher. My audience gave appar- 



c 14 n 



