Five skeletal remains of epi-Jomon and pre-Okhotsk period (approx. earlier half of the first millennium A. D.), excavated in 1959 from the Onkoromanai shell-mound near the Cape of Soya by Prof. S. Izumi and his staff of Tokyo University, were measured (see Table) and described.
The major anthropological characteristics of these remains were : 1) mesocrany, with indices higher than the recent Hokkaido Ainu, 2) hypsicrany, in contrast to the orthocrany of recent Ainu, 3) longer frontal arc than the Ainu, 4) strongly bulging glabella, deeply subsiding nasion, and projecting nasal bones, as are common in the Ainu, 5) extremely low and wide face, 6) rectangular and very low orbit, 7) narrow nose compared to the breadth of the face, 8) coincidence of straight (nonainoid) and rounded (ainoid) lower margins of the mandible, 9) broad ramus and everting angle, 10) relatively long radius and tibia, and 11) flatness of long bones, with the exception of the femur, of which upper part of the shaft showed no flattening and middle part showed pilaster formation, as is usual among Japanese Jomon period femora.
In these features, especially in 4, 5, 6 and 10, the Onkoromanai type was quite distinct from the Okhotsk-type such as found in Moyoro and Omisaki. On the other hand, it had much in common with the Ainu and the Japanese Jomon-type. The ainoid (4, 5, 6 and 10) and Jomon-type (1, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11) features were compounded in these skeletons. But the former was stronger rather than the latter. These results of comparisons seemed to suggest that the Onkoromanai type represented at least one of the ancestral forms of the Ainu race.
When compared with the three major local types of the recent Ainu, i. e. of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Kuril, the closest resemblance was found to the Kuril Ainu of Shumshu Island. In order to illustrate the relative degree of affinity, the craniometric deviations of the Onkoromanai (2 males and 1 female) from the means of the Hokkaido Ainu (Yakumo cemetery in Southern Hokkaido, by WATANABE, 1938) were shown in Fig. 2, together with those of the Kuril Ainu (from Shumshu by KODAMA, 1940), Tsukumo (shell-mound of Jomon period in Japan by KIMONO & MIYAMOTO, 1926), Sakhalin Ainu (from Rorei cemetery of eastern coast by HIRAI, 1927), and Moyoro I (typical Okhotsk type from Moyoro shell-mound in Eastern Hokkaido by ITO, 1948).
The remarkable resemblance between the Onkoromanai and the Kuril Ainu, as seen in Fig. 2, led the author to assume that the marginal Northern Kuril Islanders might be a survival of the ancestral form of the Ainu.

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Stingrays are dangerous fish living in the tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate seas.
They are classified into the following seven families; Dasyatidae, Gymnuridae, Myliobatidae, Rhino pteridae, Mobulidae, Urolophidae and Potamotrygonidae, only a few species having been studied by venomologist. The families dealt with in this paper are Dasyatidae and Potamotrygonidae.
The representative species of Japanese Dasyatidae is Dasyatis akajei (Müller & Henle) called as Akaei, Ei, Ebuta, Kasebuta (in Japanese), Ai-koro-chiep (in Ainu). This fish, though not so delicious, has been widely utilized by mankind because of it habit and caudal sting. Its origin may probably be traced back as far as to the Paleolithic age (Magdalenian).
Ainu has a lore that this Akaei is " a fish that causes earthquakes ". In Palau Is. of Micronesia, there is a tale that Rurr (in Palau ; stingray) and Kim (in Palau ; giant clam) fought each other.
Caudal stings have been from old times utilized as arrow poison because of their barbs, and venom gland which secretes strong toxic substances. They have beenused as arrow heads especially by the Ainu, Negritos of Malay (Jakun and Benua), Mentawei islanders, and Indians living in the catchment area of the River Amazon. The caudal stings have also been widely used throughout the world as hunting implements and arms.
They were utilized as fish spears by aborigines of northern Australia and Papuans, and were used as spears or harpoons in Micronesia (Truk, Palau, and Mortlock), and in Melanesia (Admiralty, Fiji, New Caledonia, and New Hebrides). As daggers they were employed in Mortlock, Admiralty, and Solomon (Ontong Java and Nukumanu).
From Jomon shell mound of Japan many old stings have been excavated which seem to have been used as arrow heads or harpoon heads. This paper has been devoted to the emeritus professor Kotondo Hasebe, Tohoku University.

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According to life tables for the Japanese prepared by the Institute of Population Problems, Japan, the expectation of life at birth of males increased by 7.47 years from 57.90 years in 1950 to 65.33 years in 1960. The author has examined to what extent the changes in the life table mortality of various age groups of the Japanese males in the ten years contributed to the increase in the expectation of lif e at birth. The following two ways of analysis were adopted:
1. Assuming the mortality under x years of age changes from the level of 1950 to that of 1960 and the mortality of x years of age and over remains at the level of 1950, the degree of contribution of such change in mortality pattern was computed. The results summarized in Table 1 on p. 167.
2. Assuming the mortality of x to x+5 years of age group alone changes to the level of 1960 and the other parts of age had the same level of mortality as that of 1950, the degree of contribution of such change in mortality patten was computed. The results are shown in Table 2 on p. 170.
Finding : Column (5) of Table 1 shows the additional contribution of the change in mortality of x to x+4 years of age group to the increase in the expectation of life at birth when the mortality of under x years of age has already changed to the level of 1960 from that of 1950. Column (6) of the same table shows such additional contribution in the form of percentage.
Column (4) of Table 2 indicates values of contribution in years derived from the computations following the second analyzing method. These values may be called independent contribution of each age group.
The decline in mortarity of under 4 year of age from 1950 to 1960 alone was found to have a potential to increase the expectation of life at birth by 31.3 years from the level of 1950. This corresponds to 42.13% of the total increase of the expectation of life at birth during 1950 and 1960. Assuming the mortality of under 45 years of age declines to the level of 1960 and those of the higher age groups remain at the level of 1950, such change in mortality pattern contributes to the increase in the expectation of life at birth by 80.88%. Among values of independent contribution of the mortality change of each five-year age group shown in column (4) of Table 2, the value of the age group 20-24 years takes the second place next to the age group 0-4 years and it has a potential to increase the expectation of life at birth by 0.59 year from the level of 1950.

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In our country, very few studies on growth of the Japanese by means of measuring body composition have been performed. Up to the present time, most basic informations regarding growth pattern of physical characteristics have been obtained on the basis of traditional anthropometry. In spite of dealing with the living subjects, the chief method of anthropometry was to measure external dimensions of the skeletal frame. Frankly speaking, this method omits or neglects variation of inner dimensions of human body such as fat and musculature. The techniques of traditional anthropometry will be more useful if knowledges of inner dimensions of human body along with their relationship with external dimensions are added. In this respect, the present author thinks that recent rapid progress of the measurement of body composition or somatometry in foreign countries could be interpreted as extension of traditional anthropometry.
These arguments are described in Section I along with an introduction to several methods concerned with prediction of total body fat.
Section II deals with growth pattern of subcutaneous fat of the Fels children, covering 4.5 to 10.5 years of age. The author wishes to express his thanks to Dr. S. M. GARN for giving an opportunity to examine these data. Measurements were taken on anteroposterior roentgenograms of those lower legs, at the level of maximum breadth of calf. In medial fat breadth, there is no significant difference between mean values in each two-year-interval in each sex respectively, though girls have greater values than boys. Bone breadth of the lower leg, however, shows a consistent increase. On the other hand, muscle breadth shows significant decrease between 8.5 and 10.5 years of age in both sexes. This discrepancy may occur from simple linear measurement way in muscle breadth, because muscle and fat are themselves a volume. The present author is trying to obtain a new method to calculate muscle volume as accurate as possible. Also, it seems to be necessary to convert measurement values of fat breadth into a logarithmic scale, because this brings the distribution of the measurement values more nearly to Gaussian form. When this conversion is carried out, then the author intends to compare growth pattern of the Fels children with the Japanese children or the hydrids between the Americans and the Japanese. Contents of Section III are concerned with Steatopygia which frequently appears only in the women of Bushman and Hottentot. He discussed on several works by other investigators concerning relative fat patterning, hereditary factor of fat, adaptation of skin and rectal temperatures in the tropic and so on. However, he has not yet arrived at definite conclusion about the cause of the formation of Steatopygia.

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