i9cx)3 The Inland Sea 



no is the truth. Especially will they thus reply to 

 certain negative forms. "You haven't fed the cat, 

 have you?" "Yes." That means, "Yes, you are 

 right; I have not." 



Leaving Hiroshima, we stopped for a few hours at 

 the ancient and singularly picturesque fishing town 

 of Onomichi, remarkable for its abundance of the 

 small and curious fishes known as seahorses. For all 

 such things I paid a good price, a fact which produced 

 considerable excitement. The story then went round eusu 

 that Ebisu himself had come and was buying sea- '^'''^''"^ 

 horses and gobies for more than real fishes were 

 worth! And here our wise and considerate helper 

 showed a trait I thought characteristically Japanese. 

 With the fishes we had gathered large numbers of the 

 interesting yellowish-white seaworm — Sipunculus. 

 These Abe threw away — really because they 

 squirmed, ostensibly because (he said) we could get 

 all we wanted of them in Tokyo, though we never 

 saw the species afterward. 



At Kobe, the large seaport of Osaka, we found 

 little of scientific interest. But we were there joined 

 by James F. Abbott, a Stanford graduate of '99, then Mbott 

 teacher of English in a college at Otsu on Lake Biwa. 

 Abbott remained with us for a couple of weeks and 

 was of great service, for besides being an accom- 

 plished zoologist, he had already learned to speak and 

 even read Japanese. Later he became professor of 

 English in the Imperial Naval College of Etajima; 

 and afterward (following his return to America) pro- 

 fessor of Zoology in Washington University, St. Louis, 

 there succeeding Arthur W. Greeley, his gifted college 

 mate and brother in Delta Upsilon, after the latter's 

 sudden, untimely death. Recently Abbott's knowl- 



n 37 3 



