Birds. 



8273 



concerning how and why this is so, nor would statistics of its trade in 

 dried fish, shell-fish, sea-weed, oil and timber, or the natural resources 

 of the adjoining country in the way of coal, lead, iron or sulphur, be 

 of much interest to ornithologists ; and therefore it will suffice to say 

 that the town is a collection of low wooden houses, overtopped with 

 the shining tiled roofs of a few temples, and broken in its monotony 

 by some black, sombre-looking Government establishments. A few 

 houses straggle up the mountain side, whose rugged steep near its 

 summit forms an admirable contrast to a thick forest of cedars and 

 pines clothing its northern face. The Russian Consulate is a large 

 imposing building, situate at one corner of this wood, and painted 

 white ; and this mark of foreign intervention is being increased by the 

 addition of a Russian Hospital, and the British Consulate which is 

 being built alongside. 



A stranger landing from China is at once struck with the compara- 

 tive wideness of the principal streets ; but he cannot but notice that 

 the ingenious Japanese, instead of paving or macadamizing them with 

 stones, leave them to the care of an ever-watchful Providence, and pile 

 the stones on the house-tops to keep the shingles (wooden tiles) from 

 being blown away by the blasts of the typhoons which occasionally 

 sweep over. The lowness of the houses is to be accounted for other- 

 wise, namely, by the occurrence of earthquakes. Probably before you 

 have taken many steps on the dry land of Yesso, you will have been 

 made aware of the principal occupation of the inhabitants, and of one 

 of the sources of wealth of Hakodadi, by the all-pervading odour 

 of drying fish and sea-weed ; and if an ornithologist you may 

 repent that you had not in your earlier life rather turned your 

 attention to u sea-side studies," on finding yourself everywhere sur- 

 rounded by clams, cockles, kelp and cuttle-fish. But never mind — 

 cheer up 1 Look at the fine mountain country across the bay to the 

 northward — the thickly wooded hill-sides where sport woodpeckers of 

 many hues, jays, nutcrackers and wood grouse. Turn to the fine fern- 

 covered plains, the haunts of quail, larks, and the more obscure but 

 not the less interesting buntings and their congeners. See oases of 

 clumps of trees clustered round the dwellings or gardens of the scattered 

 villages, where you will find various kinds of warblers, thrushes of 

 several species, and other winged songsters little behind the most 

 melodious of your own country. Observe the black-winged kite as he 

 sweeps along the sea-beach, and the buzzard and harrier as they 

 course the margins of lakes or hover over the reed-filled swamps, where 

 VOL. XX. 3 M 



