Steller's Albatross — Austin 
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ticularly on their breeding grounds. Modern 
usage by contemporary Japanese ornithologists 
restricts the common name "aho-dori” to Steller’s 
Albatross. The Laysan Albatross is now referred 
to specifically as the "Ko-aho-dori” (small alba- 
tross), while for the Black-footed Albatross, its 
English name has been borrowed and translated 
as "Kuro-ashi-aho-dori.” 
TORISHIMA 
The largest and most famous colony of Stel- 
ler’s Albatross ever known flourished on Tori- 
shima (literally "Bird Island”), 3 the southern- 
most of the Seven Islands of Izu, an isolated islet 
about 300 miles due south of Tokyo. Torishima 
is actually the conical top of a volcano, almost 
circular, and about IVz miles in diameter, pro- 
jecting about 1,150 feet above the sea surface. 
Its shore line is rimmed with cliffs that make 
landing difficult except during the calmest 
weather. It was uninhabited and was visited 
only by the few fishermen and whalers who hap- 
pened to pass that way, until the opening of 
the feather trade in the 1880’s made living there 
economically desirable. 
The island has been known to the Japanese 
since about 1700. The coastal whalers and 
fishermen who passed by it in those early days 
apparently bothered the swarms of birds very 
little. However, old Tokugawa legends say that 
the whalers occasionally brought albatrosses 
into Edo City (now Tokyo), where the meat 
was sold under the name of "Okino-tsuru” (off- 
shore crane) or "Nadano-tsuru” (rough-sea 
crane). The first settlement of the island was 
made by about 50 Japanese who arrived there 
in November, 1887, to collect feathers. They 
killed albatrosses steadily each year throughout 
the breeding season from October to May, and 
when not so engaged, eked out their living 
with a little desultory farming and fishing. 
The first authentic account of the island was 
written by a Japanese named Torn Hattori, 
about whom biographical details are lacking. 
3 Lat. 30° 29' N, Long. 140° 19' E; also called 
Ponafidin or St. Peters Island. 
Although not primarily an ornithologist ( this is 
his only known paper), he was obviously an 
educated man and something of a scientist. 
Hattori made a 2 -year survey trip, apparently 
for the Japanese Government, through the Izu 
and Bonin Islands, during which he spent more 
than 100 days from April to July, 1889, on 
Torishima. Soon after his return to Tokyo he 
wrote and published in the Zoological Maga- 
zine (Hattori, 1889) what still remains the best 
available description of the island’s bird colony. 
His account is worth quoting in some detail, for 
it furnishes many hitherto unknown facts about 
Steller’s Albatross: 
Though the island lacks drinking water, it 
has hot springs and good earth, but no trees. 
Instead, the whole island is covered everywhere 
by thick reeds, or "Mukasa” in the local Hachijo 
dialect, which provide good resorts for the alba- 
trosses. There are three or four large concen- 
trations of the birds, which are called "Torihara” 
or "Torippara” {literally "bird field”]. The 
largest one, which is on top of the island, covers 
almost 25 acres and is covered with innumerable 
birds. The people call it the "Umi gachobara” 
{sea goose field]. The other concentrations are 
smaller, covering from 7 to 12 acres each. At a 
distance the albatrosses on them might be mis- 
taken for fallen snow. When they fly up in the 
sky, they resemble a swarm of mosquitoes and 
they float in the air like white breaking waves, 
truly a sight more than wonderful! 
. . . The two species of albatrosses here, which 
both belong to the genus Diomedea, are known 
locally as the "Shirabu” {white pattern] and 
"Kurobu” {black pattern] from the color of 
their plumage, but they are often confused. 
The one commonest on our island is the "Shira- 
bu,” which ... is very rich in fat, each bird 
yielding over a pint. They are especially fatty 
from September to November, but lose much 
of it during the period of feeding the young. 
The feathers smell badly, but not as badly as the 
meat .... 
We experienced here some most astonishing 
and intolerable things, particularly the peculiar 
smell which enveloped us continually, the birds’ 
cries which continued without ceasing through- 
out the night, and a kind of tick which attacked 
us freely. We became accustomed to the smell 
in a few days, but the never-ceasing night cries 
