Who were the makers of these early relics? For some time back we have been attracted by the theories of Morse, Milne, Hitchcock and others, that there was a Pre-Ainu race in Japan, which produced these stone objects and heaped up the shell-heaps found at many places. It is indeed hard to reconcile their writings and make a harmonious whole out of their material. Still we had finally reached the conclusion that there have been three populations of Japan. _First_, the pre-Ainu aborigines, pit-dwellers, called “earth spiders,” or “earth hiders.” The evidence for their existence, Morse’s shell-heaps at Omori with crude pottery and signs of cannibalism, the pits so common in Yezo and unquestionably marking ancient dwelling-sites, Hitchcock’s living “pit-dwellers” at Shikotan, some references in old Japanese chronicles and Ainu legends, and the fact (asserted by Basil Hall Chamberlain) of unanalyzed place-names in Yezo. _Second_, the Ainu coming from the north and penetrating far south, though ever more numerous in the north. _Third_, the Japanese coming from the south and driving the Ainu northward, coming here and there in contact with such aborigines as had escaped destruction at the hands of the Ainu. The Ainu legends are curious. One of them is given by Mr. Batchelor as follows: “In very ancient times a race of people who dwelt in pits lived among us. They were so very tiny that ten of them could easily take shelter beneath one burdock leaf. When they went to catch herrings they used to make boats by sewing the leaves of bamboo grass together, and always fished with a hook. If a single herring was caught it took all the men of five boats, or even ten sometimes, to hold it and drag it ashore, while crowds were required to kill it with their clubs and spears. Yet strange to say these little men used even to kill great whales. Surely, these pit-dwellers were gods.”