100 YEARS AGO
Tuesday, March 15, 1912
Frogs are reputedly contentious by nature, and a slight provocation may lead to a bitter feud. But it is seldom that these homey creatures wage war with members of other tribes.
It seemed a unique spectacle, therefore, that a carp about 45 cm in length, and a frog of remarkable size, on Saturday afternoon closed in a life-and-death fight in the pond in the garden of Mr. Kinbei Kuroki of Neribei-cho, Shitaya (present-day Kanda, Tokyo). With stern determination, the two denizens of the pond grappled desperately and continued to fight for about half an hour. In the end, the frog got astride the fish, but by this time, both combatants had become exhausted. The interested human spectators separated the gladiators. The crestfallen carp dived deep in the water, and the doughty frog is now preserved as an honored appendage of the Kuroki family.