PRBEFAGE 
ae 
On the issue of my work “The Illustrations of a Thousand Shells”, P.I. | received a great number 
of welcome suggestions from my friends, most of whom thought it strange that I should have published it 
with wood-cuts even in this day of the 20th century, a period greatly advanced in the art of printing. 
1 have been no stranger to the elaborate elegance of lithography in colors, nor do I dislike the bril- 
liant clearness of three-coior-printing; and yet this work being not wholly for the benefit of scientific studies, 
but rather for the purpose of reference for artists and technologists, and besides being intended to be distributed 
not only among our country-people, but also to the friends abroad who have the same interest in conchology 
as we do, I consulted about the printing with the master of the book-store ‘‘Unsodo”, Kyoto, an expert in 
printing, who gave warm sympathy and approval to my plan of printing with wood-cuts. 
This is why I have used the wood-cut art, which has been existing a long time in Kyoto, and has 
advanced to an excellent state of development. A great number of friends abroad congratulated us on the 
occasion of its issue, saying that they would appreciate the work as. a rarity, since it, as a whole, represented 
an elaborate art peculiar to the Japanese. The following is an extract from the Nautilus Vol. XXVIII, No. 
V, Sept. 1914, in which Mr. C. W. Johnson, Manager of the Boston Society of Natural History wrote his 
criticism on Part One of the work:— = 
“The coloring and drawings are as a whole remarkably good; many of the more recently described 
species, such as Cyclophorus hirasei Pils., Onithochiton hirasei Pils. Chlamys hirasei Bavay and rare and beautiful 
Pleurotomaria hirasei Pils. are figured. It forms a unique conchological work.” 
In conclusion [ have much pleasure in asking my friends, warm advocates of my work to appreciate 
my humble wish in having submitted our rare, odd, and beautiful shells to the wood-cut existing as a peculiar 
art in our country. 
Y. HIRASE. 
Kyoto, Japan, 
January, 1915. 
