[FARM-HOUSE PETS IN JAPAN.]
BY ELLIOT GRIFFIS.
The Japanese people are very fond of pets. It is very rare to find a house entirely destitute of some favorite animal, from the costly chin (King Charles spaniel) to the bob-tailed cat that purrs near the tea-kettle on the hibachi, or fire-box. Canary-birds are quite common, and in place of something more rare, tiny bantam fowls are caressed and petted. Even a "rain-frog," or tree-toad, has been made a child's darling, while the little water turtles with fringed tails are prized as rare objects of delight.
In the country the boys of the family catch by trap or pit the wild animals on the hills, and tame them. Hares are the most common creatures caught, and in a little box of pine wood, with an open front of bamboo cane, the little pet finds a home. It soon learns to run about the house, and stand on its hind-legs to nibble bits of radish or lumps of boiled rice from the children's hands.
Sometimes the farmers find bigger game in their snares, such as badgers and foxes. If the badger is young, or if the boys can find an old mother badger's nest, the little cubs can be easily tamed. If kindly treated, kept from dogs, and not provoked, they are quite harmless.
But the big badgers are very snappish, and their bites are dangerous. In the picture we see the old lady of the farm-house, quite scared at the big badger which one of her sons has caught and hung up by the legs. See her girdle tied in front, as is the fashion with old ladies in Japan. "Naru hodo! what a nasty beast!" she is saying. By-and-by the boys will kill the brute with arrows, and sell the skin to the drum-maker and the hair to the brush-maker, and the dogs will have a fine feast.
What is that little board at the top, with a rope on either side?
That is the farmer's device to keep the birds away from his rice just planted. The string makes the crows afraid, and the short bits of bamboo clatter against the board, and scare off the little birds. The old badger is tied up by the legs on one of these posts in the field.