=January 18.=--I worked at fossils all day, and this evening, commencing at 5, was the Biologists’ supper. Every biologist in Tokio comes, from head professors to first-year students, about 130 in all, and I was the only lady, of course. This time we ate from high tables, sitting on European chairs, but we ate Japanese food with chop-sticks! The most thrilling things were sagittaria and _ginkgo seeds!_ cooked quite soft in a dish which is a kind of cross between a soup and a custard (a gay thing to eat with chop-sticks any way!), and by carefully biting the tiniest piece off the top of the seed one can see the embryo and suspensors; the endosperm alone, of course, is the only part eaten. Just as we have chocolates or almonds on the table through the meal, they had tins of tiny dried fish, about half an inch or so big and quite crisp, like roasted pea-nuts. It was a very frivolous meeting; there was story-telling with much laughter, and comic pictures of various professors and students under amusing circumstances; and a drawing by lot for gifts of all sorts of things, from an old newspaper or a turnip to books or ornaments.
=January 24.=--Canada Balsam is causing much trouble in the fossil work-shop, and I spent most of the day over its little fads and vagaries. The young man who is to learn how to cut the fossils (after we have learnt ourselves and can teach him) is very quaint in his personal appearance, and reminds me constantly of the Golliwog, his hair grows so far down his neck and the back of his head is so flat. I fear some day I shall give vent to the amusement he causes me. But he is undoubtedly quick in some ways and very tidy in his methods.
=January 25.=--I had to mess round over the gas-engine all the morning, and in the afternoon (Saturday) went to watch some of the mad foreigners playing, or trying to play, I should say, Hockey. They were only six a side, but I really wouldn’t join in spite of their entreaties, for they were not playing on grass, but on _bare earth_! The dust was awful, and I should think very unhealthy. It is simply impossible to get any grass in Tokio, it is only to be seen in small quantities in a few sacred places, and even then dies down all through the winter, so that it is quite unusable. Moss and liverworts grow here so well that it is very curious that grass is so impossible to cultivate. Professor _M----_ is trying experiments with English grass seed at the gardens, but it isn’t very successful, though better than the native product.