2360 The Zoologist— November, 1870. 



We pass on to Japan, and take leave of our accomplished traveller 

 at the now familiar town of Nagasaki, leaving him to study the poodles, 

 the nuthatches, and the salamanders, and thanking him most sincerely 

 for a delightful book, written in the best vein of that good humour 

 which is ever cheering to the reader, and with that intelligence which 

 cannot fail to instruct while it amuses and delights. 



" One of the most curious sights in Nagasaki is the dog-fancier's 

 shop, where the far-famed little poodles are sold. You enter a large 

 apartment, where, under the care of a young and handsome woman, 

 are specimens of the canine species of all ages, from the blind 

 struggling puppy to the dog of elderly and respectable appearance. 

 The dog-fancier's wife, who had a sick poodle in her arms, said to me, 

 ' I have no children, so I tend and care for these small dogs,' for they 

 are all of the same diminutive breed. It is a singular fact, but they 

 thrive best upon hard dried salmon, which is carefully scraped for 

 them by their kind mistress. There were more than forty dogs in her 

 keeping, and she informed me that last year she lost thirty at one time 

 from influenza. The song birds in the shop are also very pretty, as 

 are the nuthatches, which are kept in very tall cages, with an upright 

 stick in the middle, at the top of which is a cross-piece with a notch, 

 in which the bird places the nut or berry, which he hews with his pick- 

 like bill till he gets at the kernel. Instead of the more yielding fruit 

 of the yew, which is the usual food of the nuthatch of Japan, at one 

 time I substituted hard hazel-nuts. As the bird was unable to crack 

 these, he placed them one by one in his water-glass, evidently with 

 the notion that they would in time become softer — an interesting proof 

 of intelligence on the part of these birds. Here also I saw several fine 

 specimens of Sieboldia maxima, the gigantic salamander of Japan. 

 They are kept in large dark tanks, and are as ugly reptiles as can be 

 well imagined ; black sluggish creatures with warty skins, flat heads, 

 no eyes worth mentioning, blunt noses, and short sprawling legs. 

 They are said to come from the mountain streams of Kiusiu, but in 

 reality they are from the neighbourhood of Osaca, in Niphon. The 

 only kind of salamander I saw in the shallow streams which are 

 numerous about Nagasaki, was the little dingy triton, with an orange- 

 mottled belly, very similar to the water newt of Europe. 1 bought a 

 couple of Sieboldias for the captain, and had them conveyed on board 

 with a plentiful supply of small live eels for their maintenance during 

 the voyage to England. One of these creatures died in the transit. 



