The present article includes many newly recorded localities of the distribution of the Japanese Anserine Birds, known from the years between 1968 and 1971. In recent years (1970 and 1971), we have three interesting sight records of stragglers, Melanitta perspicillata, Somateria spectabilis and S. mollissima ?v-nigra in Hokkaido, are included.

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The following three species of parrots should be added to the list of live birds imported into Japan

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There are two types of the chasing behaviour for food by the black-tailed gull; one is 'piracy' ie., forcing other birds to give up their prey, and another is aerial pursuit, probably to capture small birds. The piracy by the black-tailed gulls is not a basic form of hunting food although they have learnt to live partly by 'Piracy'.

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1. In May, 1967, a colony of the Eastern Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea was found in Sabaru Island, Owase City, Mie Prefecture. This paper deals with the breeding habits of Ardea cinerea, and is based on the results of field observations from 1967 to 1971.
2. The colony is on the coastal island measurs 400 × 20.0m, in Owase Bay, and the vegetation is the evergreen broad-leaved forest, mainly consists of Castanopsis sieboldii.
3. Breeding numbers are 300-350 pairs.
4. Breeding period is from February to early July, earlier than other herons. 5. Nests tend to built the near of crown, and most found as about 80%, of the tree hights. The habitat segregation especially between Ardea cinerea and Nycticorax n., from the nesting sites and breeding season was observed.
6. Clutch size is 2-5, the average size 3.8. Eggs are alternately incubate by male and female.
7. Home range in the breeding season is the area of a radius of 5-10 km, of the colony, mainly along the coast. The home range tend to magnify with the progress of breeding season.

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[in Japanese]

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The study area, including the Kubiki and the Togakushi mountain, is situated at northern part of the central Honshu, Japan.
The social organization of the Mpine Accenter, Prunella collaris, was studied by means of ringing the birds and observing behaviors of the birds on the top of Mt. Myoko (2446m. altitude) at the Kubiki mountain range in summer and autumn, 1968 and 1969. The birds exhibited a series of breeding activities from June to August. At the time of courting and copulating, a bird (perhaps a male bird) had a territory including one or more crags in its center. The border of the territory was not distinct, so it was difficult to calculate the size of the territory.Nesting was made in the territory. At the breeding season the birds were observed as a unit of a pair, consisting of an adult male and a female, and as a solitary individual. In August, after leaving nest, a family flock was appeared, which consisting of a pair and their youngs which were one or two in most cases. Moving traces of a solitary bird and a family flock seemed to avoid a territory.
Members of the birds appeared on the top of the mountain, changed at several times between late August and early November, when the birds left. During this period, agonistic behavior was observed between adult individuals when the birds got too near each other, and the feeding of an adult bird to a young was also seen. The bonds of the birds seemed to be a family flock and a solitary.
At the Tsubame Spa where the birds wintered mid-November to early April every year, a family flock with three birds, one of which was young, appeared serially in winter 1968 and 1969. In the second winter, the individual which in the previous winter had been young, showed distinctly different moving traces from the one of other two birds which seemed to be a pair. So, this young bird seemed to become a solitary.
The breeding sites of the birds in the study area were discovered only on the tops of Mt. Myoko and Mt. Yakeyama (2400 m. altiutde) at the Kubiki mountain range. No Alpine Accenter was found at the Togakushi mountain range. The environmental conditions that there are wide range of crags and semi-bald land patched with short grass and shrub, are common to two mountain tops where the birds breed. After breeding, in late August and September, the birds appeared at other mountain tops, Mt. Hiuchi (2462 m), and Mt. Kanayama (2230 m), but in October and early November the birds disappeared except on the top of Mt. Myoko.

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Redshank (Tringa totanus) has hitherto been known as an irregular transient in Japan. In the summer of 1971, one of the authors found a gathering of some fifty birds at the Notsuke Peninsula on northern coast of Hokkaido and collected 3 males, The observation of behavior of these birds suggested their breeding there. Subsequently, downy young just hatched were found and photographed by the junior author in June 1972.
Apart from the vicinities of Lakes Khanka and Baikal, this locality is probably the only known breeding ground of the Redshank in northeastern Asia east of Kansu, China, and Mongolia. The habitat and status of the breeding ground is described. The breeding population is estimated at 50 to 100 pairs. The breeding season is from the end of May to the middle of July.

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The Asiatic Dowitcher (Limnodromus semipalmatus) which breeds in Siberia is a rare species of Scolopacidae and has never been recorded in Japan. The author has, however, found one Asiatic Dowitcher on May 23rd., 1972 at the Lake Ogawara in Aomori Pref. and has been able to take photographs in color.
The details from this observation and the field identification comparing with the three species which might easily be confused, i. e. L. scolopaceus, Limosa limosa and L. lapponica, are given in this report.

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An ecological survey of Daikoku-jima Island was made July 4-8, 1972. It is a 1, 074, 000 km² islet (six kilometers round, one hundred meters high) located in eastern Hokkaido about 12 kilometer off Akkeshi Pay (Fig. 1), and has the only known breeding colony of the Leach's Fork-tailed Petrel in Japan. There are several fishermen in the northern tip in summer and two lighthouse keepers in the southern end of the islet. The southwest corner of the island (119. 937 m², 11% of the total area) is conserved as a seabird breeding sanctuary (ig.3).
Thirty-six species of birds and three species of mammals were observed on and around the islet (Table 1). Most of the islet is covered with herbaceous plants(Fig. 5), such as Artemisia montana, Urtica platyphylla, Ligularia hodgsonii, Calamagrostis langsdorffii, Sasa nipponica, Polygonum sachalinense etc., and a poor broad-leaved woods, such as Betula ermanii, Quercus mongolica, Alnus hirsuta and Acer mono are seen here and there (Fig. 4). Forty-one species of plants were recorded in 20 plots (3×3 meter square) (Table 2).
The dominant species of bird on the island is the Leach's Fork-tailed Petrel (Fig. 2). They begin to come to the island in mid-April and leave at the end of October every year. The petrel digs a tunnel-shaped nest under the ground and lays one white egg. They use dried herbaceous leaves and stems for nesting materials.
Takamatsu (1935) observed in 1933 that the first egg was laid July 9. Chicks were found Aug. 19 and then about 80 days after hatching they had fledged.
In this survey only eggs were found in the observed nests.Aug. 11, 1956 Abé and Matsuki observed about two-week old nestlings with blackish-grey feathers in the nests.
Petrels' nests can be found everywhere on the islet except woods, cliffs and some kinds of vegetation (Fig. 6-a, b). Random sampling was carried out to check the number of nests in each plant community. The numbers of nests in each plant community (3×3 meter square) were 0 to 47 : 47 nests in Artemisia montana community, 33 in Urtica platyphylla, 17 in Polygonum sachalinense, 16 in Cacalina hastata var. orientalis, 5 in Petasites japonicus var, giganteus and no nest was found in Calamagrostis langsdorffii, Ligularia hodgsonii, Miscanthus sinensis community and woodlands. It was found that the difference of the density depended on the vegetation covering on the ground. Some plants, such as Artemisia montana and Urtica platyphylla have very simple root systems, on the other hand, Sasa nipponica, Calamagrostis langsdorffii etc. have very complex root systems (Fig. 8). It is considered that the petrel is not able to dig a tunnel through the complex root systems.
Toothpicks were placed at the entrance of the nest hole to check whether the nest was occupied or not on that time (Fig. 9). Four hundred and thirty-seven toothpicks were used for that purpose. Out of 437 toothpicks, 173 toothpicks were missing, i. e. 264 were found in and around the nests. Out of found 264 toothpicks, 97 toothpicks 37% were left as they were, and the remainders (63% 167 toothpicks) were knocked down. It became clear that about 37% of the nests were not used for breeding.
The total number of nests on the islet were estimated from the total areas of each vegetation and the numbers of nests on each sampling plot. It amounts to about 1.70×10⁶ nests on the island (370 of them, 1.70×10⁶ nests were not used for breeding).
The petrel could be seldom seen on and around the island during daytime, because they are nocturnal (Fig. 7). Diurnal rhythms of the petrel were observed all night long. Numbers of the petrels were counted every five minutes of each hour using two beams of head-lights.

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The results of the artificial feedings on two kinds of plovers are as follows;
1. In chick stage the foods, mainly consisted of a mixture of boiled eggs and chickf oods, dried water-fleas and millet were given with larvae of grasshoppers, bees and cultured insects. In adult stage both dried water-flea (28%) and millet (72%) were given with boiled eggs and dried bonitoes, occasionally.
2. Each of body weight and wing length showed different sigmoid growth curve during the first forty-five days after hatching and then stopped, respectively. Those growth curves are essentially the same as wild.
3. June 28, 1972 three Eastern Kentish Plovers and the same numbers of the Little Ringed Plovers were released at Keino Matsubara, a sandhill with pine forest, Awaji Island.

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I have been to The American Museum of Natural History in New York from July 29 to September 4 in 1971.
Staying in the city about five weeks, I studied birds in the Museum.
The skins of more than 1, 000, 000 birds including many rare birds, some of which were already extinct, are said to have been collected in the Museum.
I am going to inform you about the Museum.

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Otus scops japonicus is well known as a summer visitor in Japan. Seventy-six wintering scops owls were observed from various parts of Honshu. It is considered that some of the owls are residents in Honshu. But no wintering record on the owl is reported from Hokkaido. It is reasonable that the owl is a still summer visitor in Hokkaido.

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The Gambel's Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophyrys gambellii is a typical North American bird. Once a male had been captured at Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture December 1936.
Early morning weakened male Gambel's Sparrow was found in my garden March 9, 1964(Fig. 1). The bird recovered after that and lived for seven years.

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A Tree Pipit was caught at the center of Niigata City Feb. 9, 1965 (Fig. 1). The bird was identified as Anthus trivialis trivialis by Mr. T. Mishima. The species had never been recorded from Japan.
Following stray birds had been found in Niigata Prefecture : Emberiza spodocephala spodocephala, Ptectrophenax nivalis pallidior, Anthus gustavi gustavi, Erithacus sibilans, Erythrina erythrina grebnitskii and Turdus pallidus.
So it is considered Antsus trivalis trivalis was carried by monsoon from Siberia by accident.

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