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PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. Ill, October, 1949 
in the Bonins, but I heard that some come regu- 
larly to the Muko-jima Islands. However, it is 
impossible to hunt them there for feather 
gathering.” 
The species may have bred on other of the 
Bonin Islands, but there is definite evidence for 
its having nested on only two of them. The 
first of these is Kita-no-shima, the northernmost 
islet of the Parry Group, 4 where five eggs in the 
Yamashina collection were taken in February, 
1928. Toku-Taru Momiyama, who spent most of 
1924 and 1925 collecting birds in the Bonins, 
has four eggs from Kita-no-shima given him by 
local fishermen, three of them taken in early 
November, 1922, and the other on November 
23, 1924. Momiyama was never able to land on 
this islet during his stay in the Bonins, being 
prevented from doing so by rough seas every 
time he tried. He informs me, however, that 
when he sailed close to it in 1924, he saw only 
about 30 adult birds on its slopes. Kita-no-shima 
was designated by the Japanese Government as 
a "no hunting area” in Apr|l, 1926, but the pro- 
tection, as in all other cases, was never effective, 
for itinerant fishermen in the neighborhood ap- 
parently continued to raid it at will. 
The Bonin fishermen also gave Momiyama an 
egg taken December 1, 1924, and an adult bird 
taken October 20, 1924, on Nishi-no-shima. 5 
Momiyama landed on this isolated islet in April, 
1925, but he tells me there were no eggs or 
young in evidence, and the fishermen with him 
clubbed the five or six albatrosses they found 
there the moment they got ashore, before he 
could stop them, and before he could make any 
observations. 
Kobayashi and Ishizawa (1942: 33) state 
that the bird bred also on Yome-shima and 
Muko-shima Islands. 6 No specimen evidence 
exists to back this claim, and Momiyama recalls 
4 Muko-jima Retto of the Japanese; Kita-no-shima 
is located at 27° 43' N, 142° 06' E. 
° This islet was formerly known as Rosario Island 
and lies in 27° 15' N, 140° 53' E, about 80 miles 
southwest of the Parry Group. 
0 These are larger islands of the Parry Group. Muko- 
shima is 3 miles, and Yome-shima 15 miles, south of 
Kita-no-shima. 
seeing no birds on either island during his stay 
there. However, H. Okabe (1930: 272) gives 
the following information by one of the resi- 
dents of Muko-shima, a certain Mr. Iwasaki: 
Two kinds of albatrosses, black ones and 
white ones, occur on the island. The white one 
comes in late October, the black one in mid- 
November. The white one weighs about 7.5 
kilograms, the black ones about 5.6 kilograms. 
The date of egg laying is uncertain, but the egg 
of the white one weighs 375 grams, that of the 
black one from 260-300 grams. The white bird 
builds its nest up in a cone about 1 5 centimeters 
high, but the black one only gathers a few dried 
grasses together to lay its eggs on. The hatching 
time varies, but I think incubation takes about 
7 weeks. The adult birds leave the island in May, 
and the young leave in June. 
I spent several days in late March and early 
April, 1949, on a whaling catcher boat operating 
in the vicinity of the northern Bonins. During 
this time I was able to inspect closely every one 
of the islands in the group, though the seas 
were so rough and the winds so high during 
the entire period that I was able to land only on 
Muko-shima. We cruised for two days in the 
Parry Group, sailing around all its islets as 
closely as possible. With the exception of Muko- 
shima, all these islands are so small that their 
entire area is visible from the sea. These islands 
are now uninhabited, but during World War 
II, Muko-shima was occupied by a small gar- 
rison of about two or three hundred Japanese 
troops. When the troops were evacuated after 
the surrender, their barracks were razed, but 
evidences of occupation still remain in the form 
of the cement foundations of the barracks, old 
anti-aircraft gun-pits and machine-gun nests 
enfilading the possible landing places. The most 
deplorable evidence of the recent Japanese oc- 
cupation is the scarcity of bird life on the is- 
land. Two endemic Bonin Island land birds, 
Zoster ops palpebrosa alani and Apalopteron 
familiare familiare, were formerly abundant on 
Muko-shima. I hunted for them assiduously 
during my 4 hours on the island, but could find 
no trace of either species. They were undoubt- 
