Untitled

JAPANESE FAUNA. 393
that the soil of Japan is not naturally fertile. It is mostly either volcanic or derived
from igneous rocks, in some places, as in the great productive plain of Musashi, it
is directly drawn from volcanic tufa and ash. The extraordinary profusion of
plants growing
in a state of nature is due to the climate more than to the soil.
Besides it should be noticed that these consist very largely of coniferous trees and
other evergreens, plants which least of all tend to draw from the soil's resources.
Then the productiveness of the cultivated land is largely due to careful manuring.
This and the climate together make it possible for the Japanese farmer to gather
two crops off one field in the same year. ' A
but a small crop '
new field,' says a Japanese proverb, '
gives
a saying which strikingly shows that the Japanese themselves
have little faith in the natural fertility of the soil. The Japanese farmer treats his soil
as a vehicle in which to grow crops, and does not appear to regard it as a bank from
which to draw continual supplies of crops. Thus he manures every crop, and he
applies the manure to the crop, not to the land.
" Nowhere is there more neat and painstaking tillage than in Japan. All the
sewage of the towns and villages is utilised as manure. Of the 4| million cho
under cultivation
2j million consist of
paddy-fields, which yield on an average about
30 bushels of clean rice per acre, and the total produce of rice per annum is about
170,000,000 bushels, that of wheat, 35,000,000 bushels, and of barley 55,000,000
bushels." *
JAPANESE FAUNA.
The land being almost everywhere brought under cultivation up to the very
mountain gorges, Japan has preserved but a very small number of the wild animals
by which it was formerly peopled. The beasts of prey are represented by two
species of the bear, one of which, peculiar to Yeso, resembles the Californian
variety, and the extinct cave bear (iirsns spe/ieus). The Japanese bear, properly so
called, which is still met frequently enough in the upland districts of Hondo, is
much smaller, and distinguished from all its congeners by its hanging lips. The
wolf, which differs only in its smaller size from the European species, is now rare,
while the so called wild dog, resembling the Australian dingo, has disappeared
like most
from the southern regions, where it formerly existed. The fox, which,
other animals, is smaller than the continental variety, is both numerous and
extremely daring, penetrating even into the towns, and visiting the little rural
shrines where food is deposited in honour of Inari, god of the rice grounds. In
the popular fancy it has become the companion of this deity, who is always repre-
sented accompanied by two foxes, carved in wood or stone. A local superstition
credits this animal with the power of assuming the form of a young woman, in
which disguise it is apt to beguile benighted wayfarers. On the other hand, the
badger is endowed with the faculty of transforming
itself to articles of furniture
or kitchen utensils, for the purpose of playing practical jokes on the industrious
housewife. Similar magical virtues are also attributed to the cat.
A kind of monkey, the saru (niacaciwapcciosm}, with a rudimentary tail and a
58
" The Land of the Morning," p. 9.