modern Scandinavians. On the other hand there is a certain number of ethnologists, who entertain the opinion that the Ainu immigrated into Japan, from the south, and not from the north; but no specified locality in the south has yet been designated as the original home of the race. The last hypothesis seems, however, not to be untenable, when we consider that in historic times the Japanese drove the Ainu more and more northward, till the latter lost entirely its foothold in Hon-to, and was at last hemmed in within a small area in the island of Hokkaido and the adjacent islets. From this fact it can be imagined with some probability that the same direction of expansion might have been taken by the Ainu also in prehistoric times. The custom of tattooing, also, which can be very seldom seen among the northern Asiatic tribes, suggests to us, though faintly, the possibility of the existence of a certain kind of affinity between the Ainu and the inhabitants of the tropical regions. On the other hand, if we turn our attention to the outward features of the Ainu race, and remember that races very much resembling the Ainu are still lingering on the northeastern shores of Asia, the immigration from the northwest becomes not utterly improbable. Even the supposition that the Ainu belongs to the Aryan stock cannot be rejected as quite a worthless speculation, if the paleness of the complexion, the shape of the skull, and some other characteristic features be taken into account. In short, the ethnological uncertainty regarding the Ainu race is, in all likelihood, one of the principal causes of the obscurity concerning Japanese race-origins. Sometime in the future, I have no doubt, the racial riddle concerning the Ainu will be cleared from the haze in which it is now shrouded. Here, however, especially as I am not now treating of ethnology, I will avoid forming any hasty conclusion, and leave the question as it stands.