The high-index (881) surface has been studied by ultra-high-vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Reconstruction of the (881) Si surface was found to occur, as evident from the appearance of a number of different characteristic patterns in the STM image, including various kinds of terraces, step walls, and kinks. A typical terrace had, on average, a (7×2) reconstruction. The step walls consisted of several split lattices. Their multiple reciprocal networks and their relationship to the step walls has been analyzed. The kinks were found to consist of one-dimensional long-period superlattices. The reason for the disorder is discussed in terms of the relationship between the effective dangling-bond density and the periodic bond chain vector approximation. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.