Auckland Institute. 567 



excluding the balance of £61 6s. Id. in hand at the beginning of the 

 year, has been £897 7s. 4d., a very close approximation to last year's 

 amount, which was £900 18s. 2d. Examining the separate items which 

 make up the year's income, it will be seen that the receipts from the 

 invested funds of the Costley bequest have been £436 5s., as against 

 £328 5s. for the previous year, the apparent increase being mainly due to 

 the receipt of interest, which, if paid in time, would have appeared in 

 last year's accounts. The Museum endowment has yielded £333 lis. 7d., 

 the amount for 1899-1900 being £444 Is. 4d. The decrease has been 

 caused by the paying-off of several mortgages, which have not yet been 

 reinvested. The members' subscriptions stand at £118 13s., precisely 

 the same amount as that credited last year. The total expenditure has 

 been £822 lis. lid., leaving a balance of £136 Is. 6d. in the Bink of New 

 Zealand. The Council have no change of importance to report respect- 

 ing the capital acoount of the Institute, the total amount being the same 

 as last year— £13,590. A few mortgages have expired, and have been 

 paid off, the funds now waiting reinvestment. There is every reason to 

 believe that the invested funds are in a satisfactory condition, and the 

 securities good and ample.* 



No change has taken place under the bead of Museum Endowment. 

 The interest on the capital sum invested has been regularly received, 

 and from time to time the Crown Lands Board have paid over the rents 

 received from those endowments that are leased. How to utilise the 

 remainder of the endowment is not an easy question to solve, there being 

 little demand for oountry lands except under perpetual lease. 



Eleven meetings have been held during the session, at which nine- 

 teen papers were read. 



The Museum has been open to the publio throughout the year during 

 the usual hours — from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on week-days, and from 2 to 

 5 p.m. on Sundays. The attendance has been satisfactory. Visitors 

 to the Museum on Sundays have been regularly counted, the total 

 number being 12,371, an average of 237 for each Sunday ; the total for 

 the whole year being estimated at 43,671. The greatest attendance on 

 any one day was 520 on the 24th May (Queen's Bitthday). The chief 

 work done in the Museum during the year has been the rearrangement 

 of the greater part of the Invertebrata. The New Zealand shells have 

 been remounted and relabelled, and a considerable number of additional 

 species placed on exhibition, the collection being now as complete as 

 any in the colony. The foreign shells have received considerable atten- 

 tion, with the view of rendering the collection tolerably representative 

 of the chief families. Several minor pieces of work have been carried 

 out in the mineral and ethnological department 3 , and at the present 

 time good progress is being made in overhauling and relabelling the 

 collection of New Zealand birds. The donations received during the 

 year have been numerous and valuable, as may be seen from the ap- 

 pended list, but few of them require special mention in the body of the 

 report. One of the most interesting is a specimen of the rare and 

 curious mole-like marsupial Notoryctes, from the deserts of Central 

 Australia, obtained in exchange from the Melbourne Museum. Colonel 

 Seton-Karr has very liberally presented a series of prehistoric stone 

 implements collected by him a few years ago in Somaliland, being a 

 set similar to those which he has contributed to the chief European 

 Museums. From Mr. Elsdon Best the Museum has received a further 

 consignment — the third — of Maori ethnological specimens, obtained in 

 the vioinity of Ruatahuna and Lake Waikaremoana, most of which are 

 very acceptable additions. 



The growth of the Museum, satisfactory in some respects, is in others 



For full details of finance, see pamphlet issued by Institute. 



