1880. | Recent Literature. 661 
of these references, in many cases, is a serious fault in a work of 
this nature. 
r. Siebold makes a ludicrous blunder in the following state- 
ment: “The shell heaps themselves consist, as is likewise the 
case with the Keekkenmoedding of Europe and other parts of the 
globe, of the Eéurnas’” Will Mr. Siebold kindly inform his read- 
ers in what shell heaps of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Great 
Britain,.Spain, France, Portugal, North and South America, either 
on the east or west coasts, a single shell of Eburna has ever been 
found? Mr. Siebold has unfortunately copied his molluscan 
information (without credit being given) from a little paper of 
mine in the Popular Science Monthly. Being in Japan when this 
paper was printed, it was impossible for me to correct proof, and 
a printer’s blunder which ran two genera together, as follows, 
“ Pecten Cardium,” Mr. Siebold reproduces this blunder with re- 
markable accuracy, and at the same time mixes thjngs in a most 
unaccountable manner, by scattering the genus Eburna all over 
the world! 
A little attention in quoting from other contributions might 
have saved him some mortification in this case. 
Mr. Siebold in his impatience to prove the Aino origin of all 
the shell heaps in Japan, is lead into some curious processes of 
reasoning. For example, a curious comma-shaped stone, known 
as a magatama, is widely scattered throughout Japan and is 
regarded by the Japanese as having a high antiquity. The absence 
of this object in the shell heaps leads Mr. Siebold into the following 
extraordinary mode of reasoning. He says, “ It would be scarcely 
possible to expect to discover among these rude stone implements 
` which these shell heaps have produced, such an artificial orna- 
ment as a magatama, especially as the shell heaps themselves 
were only used as receptacles for useless and valueless articles. ; I 
think, therefore, that the fact of the magatama not being found is, 
on the contrary, proof that the shell heaps are of Aino origin.” 
Comment on such reasoning is unnecessary. 
Mr. Siebold states that in only one deposit has the evidences of 
cannibalism been found. It will interest him to know that in the 
Tokio deposit, in the deposits of Okadaira as observed by Mr. Sa- 
saki, and in the Higo deposits as observed by me, the most unques- 
tionable evidences of cannibalism occur. Mr. Siebold can hardly 
accept my evidences of cannibalism, but if they point that way 
he is ready to show that, though the Ainos are gentle and mild in 
Manner now, it was not so formerly, and that they might have 
been cannibals, and he offers, in the absence of necessary testi- 
Mony, that the Japanese annalists would have left unrecorded 
Customs and practices, which would have thrown discredit on 
their race. This is a novel idea. . Vee 
__ The question is simply, were the Ainos cannibals? not, were 
the Japanese cannibals. Mr. Siebold calls the shell heaps Aino 
