In the book called “Yo No Kotozawa Mondō,” a collection of saws and proverbs, the Li Chi is cited, where it is written that persons leading seven black horses should go out to welcome the coming spring on an eastern moor. _Aoi_, light green, is the colour of spring and _aoi_ is also used for the colour of a black horse. The ceremony is therefore the hailing of spring. Various appointments and reliefs from duty. (6.) On the 17th it is announced that on the 19th the Emperor will witness dancing. Officials from the fourth rank down to the Hanji and Shiji may be spectators; they will take their places in the corridor, and money will be given to them wherewith they may purchase crane’s flesh and wine. NOTE.—These curious religious dances, which remind one of the dances of the choristers at Easter in the Cathedral of Seville, are of great antiquity. It is written in the Nihon-ki, the history of Japan, that when the Emperor Inkiyō died in the forty-second year of his reign (A.D. 453) the King of Corea, being shocked and grieved at the news, sent eighty boat-loads of presents with musicians and eighty musical instruments, but the court of Japan was ignorant of their use. In the twentieth year of the Emperor Suiki (A.D. 612) Uimashi, Kichiuto and Katai came to Japan from Hiyakusai in Corea, announcing that having studied in China, they had learned various accomplishments together with the art of dancing, and specially the dances called Mai, a kind of minuet which the Chinese call Wu, danced to the accompaniment of musical instruments. These three men were sent to a place called Sakurai Mura, and persons of tender age were gathered together to be taught by them. Two years later (A.D. 614) in the twenty-second year of the same reign, one Inugami Mitasuki was sent to the Court of China to be instructed in various accomplishments and returned in the following year. In the reign of the Emperor Nimmei (A.D. 834-850) Fujiwara no Sadatoshi went to China for the same purpose and in A.D. 847 was appointed Uta no Kami, “the Lord of Song,” as the chief instructor in the arts of singing and dancing. In the reign of the same Emperor Nimmei it is recorded that an old man named Hamamushi of the province of Owari, who at eighty-three years of age was as active as a boy, was summoned to dance before the Emperor. He it was who invented the dance called Choju-gaku, the dance of long life. (The legend taken from the first eclipse of the sun, when the sun-goddess hid in a cave and was tempted out by the dancing of her turbulent brother, is too well known to be more than referred to here. But it is the foundation of the mystic dances of the Shintō.) (7.) 18th day. Matsudaira Idzumi no Kami is reproved on account of riots which have taken place in his district.