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JAPANESE FAUNA. 895
domain. Altogether the Japanese ornithological world presents much analogy
to that of temperate Europe, each species being represented in both regions by
corresponding forms. Nevertheless the ototo-gisu, the king of Japanese songsters,
fetching as much as 80 in the market, is not a nightingale, as in Europe, but a
member of the cuckoo family.
" The crow forms a salient feature of the landscape, especially in Yeso. Here
there are millions of them, and in many places they break the stillness of the silent
land with a babel of noisy discords. They are everywhere, and have a degree of
most unpardonable impertinence, mingled with a cunning and sagacity which almost
put them on a level with man in some circumstances. Five of them were so impudent
as to alight on two of my horses, and so be ferried across the Yurapugawa.
In the inn-garden at Mori I saw a dog eating a piece of carrion in the presence of
several of these covetous birds. They evidently said a great
deal to each other
on the subject, and now and then one or two of them tried to pull the meat away
Fig. 184. FAOSIMILE OF A JAPANESE BIKD DESIOX.
from him, which he resented." * The Japanese crow is considerably larger than
the European species, being about the size of our ravens, and fully a match in
strength and courage for small dogs.
Legend fills the popular fancy with monstrous dragons,
with whom the heroes
of the olden times had to do battle. These reptiles have now degenerated to
harmless snakes, the only venomous animals in the archipelago being a trigono-
ccphalous species, from which a healing drug is. extracted, and a little crustacean of
the order of the cloportsc. One of the most remarkable local reptiles is a gigantic
salamander, the sanzio-uvo (Sieboldia maxima}, that lives on fish and frogs, but is
now becoming rare even in Japan. Beetles, butterflies, and other insects are
extremely numerous, as is also the marine fauna, although several species
of fur-
bearing cetacea have already been exterminated. The beaver has also disappeared
from several of the Kurile Islands, where it was formerly very common.
" Unbeaten Tracks," ii., p. 129.