Tokyo, Apr. 20, Japan's foreign trade figures to the middle of April are estimated og follow:—
Import 5 "as; o12,000 Export +¥.95,083,000 Adverse balance 20.025 Looaosiae The adverse trade balance from the beginning of the current year to the middle part of April is thus 184,882,000 which compared with the corresponding period of the previous year shows a deere gives to the bird on its return, The nds are fed only once a day and manner just described. Traine jed birds have a cord around their necks to prevent them from swale lowing the fish entirely, but they able to swallow small fish note withstanding, In the night, after the fishing is finished, if any' of the birds are evidently still hungry, they are fed with fish. Then, all arg taken to their quarters.
Very often, the night fishing becomes a veritable fete, boats with lanterns and filled with sight-seers, singers and merry-makers following or preceding the fishing boats, The music, songs and shouts of the merry-makers seem to excite the cormorants and incite them to do their best. Cormorant fishers wel Jcome these makers of "whoopee" Jand declare that, on such nights, the birds catch much more fish than /when everything is comparatively The trained cormorant acts with a fanny cleverness. A man very often directs at a time, holding the mother cord in which ends the twelve small cords attached to the birds. He follows them with a lynx eye and handles the cords in such an admirable fashion that they never become tangled in spite of the many evolutions of the birds who are bility and attention personified, The cormorants used in Japan are of two kinds: the larger, or Schlegel's cormorant which is most used: and the smaller or Japanese cor= moran, called Kawa-tsu, The latter dwells in trees; the former among When the newly-captured birds are somewhat tamed, they are taken lout with fally tame. birds to swim about the boats, Kestasy over thei freedom and contact with th native element is expressed by them in hoarse notes and giddy: episodes, the birds flying up and then swoop ing down practically on their tails to skid along the water before they actually go for a swim, Presently they begin to follow the example of the trained birds*and take fish for their own food, During the fishing season and also during the late fall and the eatly spring the keep of the "ts no problem—they are cut on the river and own pro-ater, they are kent in a sort of fowl pen and have to be fed when storms, or snow and ice prevent resort to the river.
"The best birds are those from four to eight years old and these are worth anything from ¥.150 to ¥.900. After they pass the eighth' year, their prime is gone and they begin to slow clown in their work, though they can be used up to fifteen years and some for even a longer period.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.