official rank. A very light diet is essential:—rice with a trifle of grated dried bonito just to give it a flavour, but no other fish or meat. Eggs, too, are good, and bread and milk or biscuits, but not too much of anything. Contrary to the practice mentioned above, the dealers recommend a modicum of exercise. With care, a chin may live to the age of fourteen or fifteen.
The origin of the chin is obscure, though the probability is in favour of its descent from the Chinese pug, perhaps via Luchu, seeing that the breed can be traced southwards to Satsuma. Such differences as now exist would have arisen from crossing with other small dogs to which breeders frequently resort, because the race is too delicate to propagate itself for many generations unless reinforced from some sturdier stock. Purchasers are therefore apt to be confronted with a dilemma:—either the animal offered to them is pure bred, but sickly; or it is healthy, but not a good specimen. Beware of "legginess." Perfect specimens are undoubtedly very captivating, and one or two of them form charming ornaments to a lady's boudoir. They can be taught tricks, a favourite one being o mawari, that is, turning round and round. The price (1904) varies from about 60 to 80 yen.
The Japanese do not look on pugs as dogs. They speak of "dogs and pugs" (inu ya chin), as if the latter formed a distinct species.
Race. There has been much strife among the learned on this question: to which race do the Japanese belong? Not scientific considerations only, but religious and other prejudices have been imported into the discussion. One pious member of the Scotch Kirk derives the Japanese from the Lost Tribes of Israel. An enthusiastic German professor, on the other hand, Dr. Wernich, takes up the cudgels to defend so charming a nation against "the reproach of Mongolism,"—whatever that may be. The two greatest authorities on the subject, Baelz and Rein, say, purely and simply, that the Japanese are Mongols. We incline to follow Baelz in his hypothesis of two chief streams of immigration, both
