Somewhat similar to _uta garuta_ is the game of _kai awase_ (“shell matching”). Three hundred and sixty bivalve shells are used for this game. The two sides are separated and on the upper half is painted a portrait of a poet, on the mated shell are the lines of one of his poems. Other sets have only the poems inscribed within them, the two first lines being on one half shell, the remaining lines on the other. The shells are divided among the players, and as the pictures or first lines are laid upon the mats, the holder of the corresponding poem places his shell near it. Some of the old _kai awase_ sets were of great beauty and were stored in circular lacquer cases of fine workmanship. This game and the _uta garuta_ naturally were played only by the cultured classes and were vehicles for the learning of the classics. In addition to the kites and battledores, stilts and hand balls, there are represented in this selection of _surimono_ other toys for children such as hobby horses, dolls of paper, swinging bats for ball playing, archery outfits and the amusements afforded by caged singing insects and trained mice and monkeys. The older people likewise have delightful pastimes. As the season advances they spend much time in enjoying nature, the viewing of blossoming trees and plants, the listening to singing insects in the evening, and the gathering of shells and shell fish at ebb-tide are all occasions of organized parties in which men as well as women take keen pleasure. A series of five _surimono_ by Kuniyoshi realistically portrays the joys of an ebb-tide party. Most of the musical instruments, which both men and women enjoy playing, are importations from China, particularly the lyre (_koto_), the violin (_kokyū_) and the reed organ (_shō_). The samisen, a three-stringed guitar, is the popular accompaniment of the singing girl or geisha; the _koto_ is played by the more aristocratic women. Drums of double conical form (_tsuzumi_) are to be seen in the hands of both men and women. Flutes have long been popular with men of all classes, the wandering minstrel, the court musician and even the courtier himself who delighted to match the softness of his flute tone with the gentle light of the moon, or with the voice of the harbinger of spring as evidenced by the poem on Fig. 7 which reads: “Like the nightingale’s voice above the clouds, hazed over by the mist, the flute contains sweetness.”