Professor _S----’s_ garden was more of a dream than ever,--lit with stone lanterns and with a few red roses among the green, the moon being in a watery mist, and we turned the light down, and listened to the bell-like tones of a little “Bell insect,” hanging in a 2-inch cage in the garden. The note was slightly muffled, but musical, penetrating, and sad--one of those notes that act as an “Open Sesame” to the gate of emotions--that is, I should say, to some people’s emotions. Professor B---- had the insect under a “scientific scrutiny” for a whole minute, and then produced his note-book, and the light was turned up while he wrote down his observation that the noise is made by the rubbing of the wings where they slightly overlap.
=July 10.=--The last day’s lunch at the Goten, and a lot of work of one sort and another got out of hand. Collecting plant-material, etc., takes more time than one would think. The fossil lab.-boy is ill again, and fossils are hanging fire a little, for I can’t do more than three things at once.
=July 12.=--Writing all morning; the weather is glorious, and the rainy season seems to be pretty well over, and has been a record one. The rain came at the right time, lasted the right length of time, and was cool instead of “steamy hot,” as it often is--we cannot be too thankful for these mercies. Even as it is, the inside of my writing case and the whole of my shoes and straps are covered with blue mould.
I paid several calls in the afternoon--my neighbours are off to the mountains first thing to-morrow morning--lucky people! How I wish I could feel free to do the same, instead of grinding over these old fossils. Soon Tokio will be empty of all the sane people who inhabit it in the winter.
As I am writing I hear the tune of “Auld Lang Syne” set to Japanese and sung lustily. It is one of the favourite foreign tunes among the Japanese, and many sing it without knowing it isn’t Japanese, I believe.
=July 13.=--I was in the garden with Professor _F----_ for the first time this year. We were getting some gymnosperm material, and found a brilliant green frog sitting in the sunshine on a brilliant green leaf. He told me he would be brown on a barky branch, so I picked the frog up and put him on the curve of a broad brown branch, and, sure enough, the webs of his feet went quite brown in a minute, and his back went a much darker, duller green, but we couldn’t wait to see him all turn brown, it took too long.