Abstract
Editor's Note: Although Professor Zhang Zni-yen failed ever to mention the scientific name of the specific ibis he writes of, I have determined by researching numerous books in my own library that the bird is the Japanese crested ibis Nipponia nippon. This bird is indigenous to Japan where from 1890 to 1930 it was considered extinct. In 1930 small numbers were found breeding in Honshu and perhaps two other places in Japan. During the 1940s much forest was cleared and vast areas of the species' habitat was destroyed. By 1960 only ten of the ibis were alive. In 1986 when Zhang Zhi-yen wrote this paper only five of the ibis were alive in Japan and they were not breeding.
