Fecal droppings of Grey-headed Green Woodpeckers, which were left in roosting nest boxes, were collected and analyzed from 20th October 1977 to 9th April 1978. The nest boxes were set up on the Forest Observation Tower in the Tomakomai Experiment Forest of Hokkaido University.
(1) Food items identified were insects, spiders, centipedes and plant food (seeds of trees).
(2) Results of the dropping analysis were expressed according to the subdivision of seasons in the Experiment Forest. Lasius niger was favored from Autumn to Winter I, then decreased inWinter II, and increased in Late Winter again.
(3) Many seeds of trees appeared in Autumn to Winter I but they decreased in Winter II and did nor increase thereafter.
(4) Animal foods other than ants increased in Winter I; in Winter II only spiders increased.
(5) We discussed the questions of analysis of droppings and the relation between the food habits of Grey-headed Green Woodpeckers and snow depth.

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The records of the Pallas's Reed Bunting Emberiza pallasi from Japan were reviewed. This species was apparently rare in our country and only three specimens were collected in the pre-war time. In the past few years, however, eleven birds were captured and banded by the Bird Banding Center teams (Table 1). There were also few sight records, though none of them seemed to be authentic. According to these records, the species is probably an uncommon, but regular, winter visitor to Japan. It has been found to inhabit in coastal reed beds along rivers from October to March (sometimes to May).
Although this species has been subdivided into two or three subspecies, most examples from Japan are referable to Emberiza pallasi polaris MIDDENDORFF which have more northern distributional range than the other subspecies.
Two kinds of call notes, i.e. a short 'jitt' and a long sharp 'chii', were heard during our banding work. The former resembled one of call notes uttered by the Japanese Reed Bunting Emberiza yessoensis yessoensis and the latter resembled to the uttered call of the Swinhoe's Reed Bunting E. schoeniclus pyrrhulina.
According to our field observations, females and immatures of E. pallasi were difficult to distin-guish from those of E. schoeniclus, although males may be identifiable at short distance.
The iris of E. pallasi is chestnut in adult and olive-brown in juveniles, as is the case in E. s. pyrruhulina. Consequently the iris colour, as well as the shape of the tail-feathers and the skull ossifica-tion, is a useful character for ageing in the winter season.

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Check-list of Japanese Birds (1974) follows VAURIE (1955, 1959) in synonymizing Turdus chrysolaus orii YAMASHINA with nominate chrysolaus. Re-examination of materials, including the type and other specimens from the Kurile Islands, has shown that the breeding males of orii, the northern Kurile population (Paramushir, Araido, Matsuwa), can be separated readily from those of nominate chrysolaus from Sakhalin, Hokkaido and Honshu, on account of the very dark coloration of their head. In this subspecies (breeding males) the head and crown is blackish sooty brown in contrast to the olive-brown nape and back, giving an appearance of being black-capped, whereas in nominate chrysolaus the upper parts are more or less uniform olive brown. The wing length and the bill height (but not bill length) of orii are also larger, although the ranges of variation overlap to some extent between the two forms (Figs. 1-2). It therefore seems to me best to retain orii as a distinct subspecies. In females, juveniles and first winter males orii is rather similar to the nominate form, but in males the characteristics of orii may become recognizable in February or March as the wear of the plumage progresses.

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