134 
JAPAN 
JAPAN. 
Nagasaki, lat. 32° 45' N. 
April 25th, 1904. 
Japan! The land of incongruities. 
We were guided into the harbour by a Government launch, for 
the Bussian war was in full swing, and we had to thread our way 
through a mine field ! A nation until recently one of the most con¬ 
servative in the world, does not neglect any modern invention likely 
to be of service in its mighty struggle with the Colossus of the North. 
The recurring necessity of coaling gave us the opportunity of 
landing, so we left the merry little Japanese women to their grimy 
task, and crossed over the hill to Mogi, a small fishing village on 
the other side of the peninsula. The country was pretty and all 
arrayed in bright spring colours. The crops were trim and tidy, 
the woods every shade of emerald and bronze, the wild flowers 
mostly of English type, e.g. two sorts of scentless Violet, a Potentilla, 
and the good old Dandelion. A prominent plant new to me was like 
Lucerne, but smaller, and with flowers the colour of Thrift; being 
used for fodder it gave much brilliance to the landscape both here 
and in other parts of the country. On the way to and fro (all too 
short) I got some delightful collecting. The Fauna even more than 
the Flora afforded illustrations of the strange mixture of the Oriental 
with the Palaearctic which is so characteristic of the Japanese archi¬ 
pelago, and which is, presumably, most marked in the southern 
island Kiusiu. Thus both Zizera maha , Koll., f. diluta , Feld., 
and Cyaniris ladonides, de l’Orza, had a very Palaearctic look, and 
the same may be said of the handsome Satyr with the terrible name, 
Blanaida {Neope) goschJcevitschii, Menet., of which several were seen, 
reminding me of large Pararge megaera , Linn. Moreover, even 
the fine Papilio xutJmlus , Brem., is a good deal like P. machaon, 
Linn. On the other hand, the brown Papilio alcinous, Klug, has a 
distinctly Eastern look, while true Oriental magnificence was reached 
by the splendid blue-green Papilio (probably maacki , Menet.) that I 
saw in the road and missed ii£ spite of the polite assistance of a 
Japanese gentleman who was passing by and marked it for me. 
P. alcinous was quite common, and I secured two S and one ?. 
Unfortunately I did not examine this species for scent; Leech, 
quoting Pryer, says: “ The £ emits a peculiarly sweet, musky odour 
