Herons and Great Cormorants Phalacrocorax carbo nested at Chikubushima Island in Lake Biwa, Japan, during the Edo and Meiji periods (18^th century – early 20^th century). Local residents had much experience with these bird species and a deep folkloric knowledge. The local residents ate the eggs and meat of these birds, and used their feathers for fishing gears and other purposes. Some of them caught the young cormorants and trained them for “cormorant fishing” in Fukui, in the Japan Sea side. However, from the middle of the Showa period (the mid-1900’s) they no longer utilized these bird species, even after the population increase of these bird species during the 1990s.

日本に西洋生物学が導入された草創期に，トーマス・ブラキストンによって北海道で採集された2点のコジュリンEmberiza yessoensisの標本について，採集者のノートと標本カタログの解析を通じて，（1）失われたと考えられていた標本の再発見，（2）詳細な採集情報が欠落した標本の情報復元を行い，タイプ標本の採集地が函館であることを示した。これらの標本はいずれも種の記載に用いられた標本であり，標本の再発見と採集情報の復元は，日本産コジュリンの分類学にとって重要な情報を提示するものであるとともに，種の分布の歴史的検討や過去の気候に関する情報を提供する可能性を示した。

Fault bars are narrow structural malformations in feathers. Procellariiform seabirds have long wings that generate lift and power at high speeds and short tails that may not provide dynamic stability. We predicted that Procellariiformes would have fewer fault bars in their wing feathers than in their tail feathers. We examined Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis (bycatch in the Japanese pelagic longline fishery in the western north Pacific) and compared the occurrence of fault bars between primary remiges and rectrices using hierarchical Bayesian models. As expected, the models suggested that albatross primary remiges had fewer fault bars than rectrices.

The first importation of live penguins to Japan took place when two Humboldt Penguins (Spheniscus humboldti) arrived in 1915 from Chile. One of them was donated to the Tokyo Imperial Household Museum Zoo (which later became Ueno Zoological Gardens) on June 9, 1915 by Mr. Isokichi Ozawa, the chief engineer of a Japanese merchant ship with regular service to South America. After its death it was preserved as a stuffed specimen, and its record was found in the specimen database (Tensanbu Daicho) of the Tokyo Imperial Household Museum. After the passing of this penguin, the other individual was purchased by Hanayashiki, an amusement park in the Asakusa district in Tokyo. In 1951, Mr. Haruo Takashima discovered the record for a specimen of the Humboldt Penguin registered by the same specimen number in the Tensanbu Daicho at the National Museum of Nature and Science; he later reported that it was an immature bird (Takashima 1952a). It is now believed that the specimen of the immature Humboldt Penguin at the National Museum of Nature and Science, previously considered to be of unknown origin, was one of those first two living penguins imported into the country. In addition, I found that the penguin illustrated in a traditional Japanese hanging scroll was modeled after the individual kept at Hanayashiki and that it was also an immature bird. This has led this author to assume that immature penguins that were easy to keep, were chosen for shipment to Japan.

ゴジュウカラ（Sitta europaea）の繁殖生態については，樹洞営巣性であることとカラ類に比べ巣箱をあまり使わない習性からあまり詳しく調べられていない．我々は北海道大学苫小牧研究林内（42°40′N, 141°36′E）にて年間300–350個の巣箱を2009–2010および2012–2015年の6年間設置し，ゴジュウカラの繁殖を調べた．このうちゴジュウカラが利用した巣の数は合計9巣であった．繁殖パラメーターの平均値（巣数）は，産卵開始日5月8日（9），一腹卵数の平均は7.8個（9）であった．ふ化率は抱卵期に捕食を受けた巣を除くと87.3％（7），巣立ち率は85.3％（5）であった．また，抱卵期間は平均18.6日（7），孵化から巣立ちまでの日数は20.4日（5），巣立ち雛数は平均6.2羽（5）であった．