Orii Hyōjirō

Born in Niigata Prefecture in 1883, Orii moved to Hakodate in 1899; in 1913 he would move again, from Hakodate to a house on the banks of the Bibi River where it meets Lake Utonai (now a Ramsar site), in what was then the village of Tomakomai.{{rp|239}} His career as a specimen collector took off in 1906, when he provided his services first to Malcolm Playfair Anderson, then to Alan Owston. In 1906/7, Orii collected for Owston on the Korean Peninsula and in Shandong Province, China; this arrangement continued in 1910, when Orii collected specimens in Yunnan Province. In the years between, he travelled and collected in the Kuril Islands, northern China and Manchuria, and Sakhalin. In 1921, he collected for Kuroda Nagamichi in the Ryūkyūs. Between 1925 and 1935, collecting for Yamashina Yoshimaro, his travels took him again to Sakhalin, to the northern Kurils, Korea, the Pacific Islands (including Palau, Pohnpei, and the Marshall Islands),{{rp|239}} Taiwan, and Manchuria, where he would also collect once again for Kuroda. In 1936, he collected in the southern Ryūkyūs, and in 1944, around Akkeshi and Nemuro in eastern Hokkaidō. The specimens he collected in these years number in the tens of thousands, including some 8,845 items from 556 species in the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology; other specimens are in the Natural History Museum in London, Hokkaido University Faculty of Agriculture Museum, and Tomakomai City Museum.{{cite journal |script-title=ja:折居彪二郎採集標本の歴史的検討 |trans-title=Historical Examination of Specimens Collected by Orii Hyōjirō |language=ja |author1=Katō Masaru 加藤克 |author2=Ichikawa Hideo 市川秀雄 |journal=Bulletin of the Museum Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University |publisher=Hokkaido University |year=2001 |volume=1 |pages=1–18 |hdl=2115/32803}} In total, as many as 14 species and 41 subspecies of mammal, and 6 species and 68 subspecies of bird were described from type specimens he provided. Later in life he turned his hand to recording sightings of birds, participating in surveys for the Forestry Agency at Lake Utonai and other lakes and marshes in the vicinity of his home.{{rp|239}}

Orii left a large number of collection diaries — an important resource for ornithologists and mammalogists — which also include lively accounts of his expeditions, such as when, having spotted a rare bird on a list of specimens obtained by the Whitney South Sea Expedition ship at the village office on Pohnpei, he promptly collected and shipped a specimen back to Tokyo, where Takatsukasa Nobusuke and Yamashina Yoshimaro published the long-billed white-eye (Rukia longirostra; protonym: Cynnirorhyncha longirostra) as a new genus and species a few weeks before Ernst Mayr published the same bird as Rhamphozosterops sanfordi.{{cite journal |url=https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/10833330 |script-title=ja:カロリン群島産の二新鳥 |trans-title=On Two New Birds from the Caroline Islands |language=en |author1=Takatsukasa Nobusuke |author2=Yamashina Yoshimaro |journal=Dobutsugaku Zasshi |year=1931 |volume=43 |number=516 |pages=599–600}}{{cite journal |title=Type specimens of birds in the American Museum of Natural History. Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae and Meliphagidae |author=Lecroy, M. |journal=Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History |year=2011 |volume=348 |number=348 |pages=1–193 |doi=10.1206/724.1 |hdl=2246/6441|s2cid=85576340 }}{{rp|34}} The collection diaries are compiled in a somewhat idiosyncratic fashion, interspersed with English and Chinese, and with names sometimes in hiragana, sometimes katakana; in 2013, they were published in a modern Japanese translation.

Orii died in 1970, at the age of 87 by traditional East Asian age reckoning.

The seven mammal and ten bird taxa named in honour of Orii Hyōjirō include:{{cite book |title=The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals |author1=Beolens, B. |author2=Watkins, M. |author3=Grayson, M. |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-8018-9304-9 |page=300}}{{cite book |title=The Eponym Dictionary of Birds |author1=Beolens, B. |author2=Watkins, M. |author3=Grayson, M. |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-4729-0573-4 |page=417}}

• Ryūkyū shrew (Crocidura orii; protonym: Crocidura dsinezumi orii){{cite book |url=https://trc-adeac.trc.co.jp/Html/ImageView/0121315100/0121315100100010/27037/ |title=On new mammals from the Riu Kiu Islands and the vicinity |author=Kuroda, N. |place=Tokyo |year=1924 |pages=1–14}}{{rp|3}}
• Sakhalin hare (Lepus timidus orii){{cite journal |title=The mammal fauna of Sakhalin |author=Kuroda, N. |journal=Journal of Mammalogy |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=222–229 |year=1928 |doi=10.2307/1373270|jstor=1373270 }}{{rp|223}}
• Ezo flying squirrel (Pteromys volans orii; protonym: Sciuropterus russicus orii){{cite journal |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/52845483 |title=On three new mammals from Japan |author=Kuroda, N. |journal=Journal of Mammalogy |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=208–211 |year=1921 |doi=10.2307/1373554|jstor=1373554 }}{{rp|208}}
• Orii's least horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus cornutus orii){{rp|4}}
• Palau starling (Aplonis opaca orii){{cite journal |url=https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/10833254 |script-title=ja:パラオ及びマリアナ群島に産する數種の新しき鳥 |trans-title=Several new species of birds from Palau and the Mariana Islands |language=ja |author1=Takatsukasa, N. |author2=Yamashina, Y. |journal=Dōbutsugaku Zasshi |year=1931 |volume=43 |number=512 |pages=458–459}}{{rp|458}}
• Yakushima jay (Garrulus glandarius orii){{cite journal |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32428686 |title=Descriptions of new subspecies from Japan |author=Kuroda, N. |journal=Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club |year=1923 |volume=43 |pages=86–91}}{{rp|86}}
• Japanese light-vented bulbul (Pycnonotus sinensis orii){{cite journal |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32428705 |title=Descriptions of new species from Japan |author=Kuroda, N. |journal=Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club |year=1923 |volume=43 |pages=105–109}}{{rp|105}}
• †Daitō varied tit (Sittiparus varius orii){{cite journal |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32428721 |title=Descriptions of apparently new forms of birds from the Borodino Islands, Riu Kiu group, Japan |author=Kuroda, N. |journal=Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club |year=1923 |volume=43 |pages=120–123}}{{rp|121}}
• Taiwan turtle dove (Streptopelia orientalis orii){{cite journal |script-title=ja:台湾産鳥類の2新亜種 |trans-title=Two new subspecies of bird from Taiwan |language=en, ja |author=Yamashina, Y. |journal=Tori |volume=7 |number=35 |pages=414–415 |year=1932 |doi=10.3838/jjo.7.35_414|doi-access=free }}{{rp|414}}
• Rota kingfisher (Todiramphus albicilla orii; protonym: Halcyon chloris orii){{cite journal |url=https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/10833278 |script-title=ja:パラオ及びマリアナ群島に産する數種の新しき鳥 |trans-title=Several new species of birds from Palau and the Mariana Islands |language=ja |author1=Takatsukasa, N. |author2=Yamashina, Y. |journal=Dōbutsugaku Zasshi |year=1931 |volume=43 |number=513 |pages=484–487}}{{rp|484}}
• Kuril brown-headed thrush (Turdus chrysolaus orii){{cite journal |script-title=ja:再び千島列島産鳥類に就いて |trans-title=On the Birds of Kurile Islands (II) |language=en, ja |author=Yamashina, Y. |journal=Tori |volume=6 |number=28 |pages=145–160 |year=1929 |doi=10.3838/jjo1915.6.28_145|doi-access=free }}{{rp|155}}
• Iriomote pygmy woodpecker (Yungipicus kizuki orii){{cite journal |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32428709 |title=Descriptions of new species from Japan |author=Kuroda, N. |journal=Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club |year=1923 |volume=43 |pages=105–109}}{{rp|109}}

{{Commons category|Orii Hyōjirō}}

• List of Ramsar sites in Japan
• Species description
• Binomial nomenclature

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Category:Japanese ornithologists

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Category:1883 births

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Category:Scientists from Niigata Prefecture