146 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



The waters at tlie head of the gulf and round its shores are 

 very shallow, and the country for some miles inland is gene- 

 rally low and flat, and cut up by streams and canals, with 

 here and there ridges of higher ground often thickly wooded. 

 The greater part of Yedo is built on low land, hardly more 

 than ten feet above the level of high water. It covers an 

 area of about twenty-flve square miles, and has a population 

 of 700,000. 



The castle occupies the end of a spur of higher ground, 

 that runs through one side of the town from south-west to 

 north-east, and is surrounded by three moats, besides branches, 

 from one to two or three hundred feet in width, the extent 

 of the outer moat being fully five miles round. Besides the 

 main river and moats, several small rivers run through the 

 city ; also numerous canals which are generally bordered by 

 firs and pine-trees. Like cities in other parts of the world, Yedo 

 has its aristocratic quarter, business quarter, and poorer locali- 

 ties. In the aristocratic quarter the houses and yashikis of the 

 ex-Daimios have generally a considerable extent of garden 

 ground around them, beautifully laid out, and always in imi- 

 tation of the natural landscape, there being invariably a small 

 lake or pond, with rushes, in corners, surrounded with bamboo 

 and other trees. Even in the most crowded business centres 

 gardens are found so arranged and laid out that, sitting under 

 the verandah overlooking the indispensable pond, it is hard to 

 realise that outside the belt of bamboo there are streets as 

 crowded and busy, without exaggeration, as Princes Street or 

 the North Bridge in Edinburgh, at the busiest time of the 

 day. Within the inner moat of the castle are some very 

 beautiful grounds, with fine old trees and miniature lakes, 

 streams, and waterfalls, and even rice-fields. The same are 

 to be found on a smaller scale within temple and yashiki or 

 palace grounds of all the ex-Daimios. These grounds, and 

 the numerous streams, moats, and canals, with their wooded 

 margins, give room and shelter to the birds. 



The following authorities have been consulted in preparing 

 the catalogue of species : (1.) Temminck and Schlegel — 

 " Fauna Japonica : Aves." (2.) Captain Blakiston — " On the 

 Ornithology of Northern Japan," lUs, 1862, p. 309. (3.) Do.— 



