While there can be no doubt that the luxuriance of Japan's flora is due to rich soil, to high temperature and to rainfall not only plentiful but well distributed over the whole year, the wealth and variety of her trees and shrubs must be largely the result of immigration. Japan has four insular chains which link her to the neighbouring continent. On the south, the Riukiu Islands bring her within reach of Formosa and the Malayan archipelago; on the west, Oki, Iki, and Tsushima bridge the sea between her and Korea; on the north-west Sakhalin connects her with the Amur region; and on the north, the Kuriles form an almost continuous route to Kamchatka. By these paths the germs of Asiatic plants were carried over to join the endemic flora of the country, and all found suitable homes amid greatly varying conditions of climate and physiography. _Fauna._--Japan is an exception to the general rule that continents are richer in fauna than are their neighbouring islands. It has been said with truth that "an industrious collector of beetles, butterflies, neuroptera, &c., finds a greater number of species in a circuit of some miles near Tokyo than are exhibited by the whole British Isles." Of mammals 50 species have been identified and catalogued. Neither the lion nor the tiger is found. The true Carnivora are three only, the bear, the dog and the marten. Three species of bears are scientifically recognized, but one of them, the ice-bear (_Ursus maritimus_), is only an accidental visitor, carried down by the Arctic current. In the main island the black bear (_kuma_, _Ursus japonicus_) alone has its habitation, but the island of Yezo has the great brown bear (called _shi-guma_, _oki-kuma_ or _aka-kuma_), the "grisly" of North America. The bear does not attract much popular interest in Japan. Tradition centres rather upon the fox (_kitsune_) and the badger (_mujina_), which are credited with supernatural powers, the former being worshipped as the messenger of the harvest god, while the latter is regarded as a mischievous rollicker. Next to these comes the monkey (_saru_), which dwells equally among the snows of the north and in the mountainous regions of the south. _Saru_ enters into the composition of many place-names, an evidence of the people's familiarity with the animal. There are ten species of bat (_komori_) and seven of insect-eaters, and prominent in this class are the mole (_mugura_) and the hedgehog (_hari-nezumi_). Among the martens there is a weasel (_itachi_), which, though useful as a rat-killer, has the evil repute of being responsible for sudden and mysterious injuries to human beings; there is a river-otter (_kawauso_), and there is a sea-otter (_rakko_) which inhabits the northern seas and is highly valued for its beautiful pelt. The rodents are represented by an abundance of rats, with comparatively few mice, and by the ordinary