54 South Kensington. 



Hawaiian Islands have formed an independent nation and compe- 

 tent by the law of nations to seledt its own name. The names of 

 the separate Islands are often miss-spelled, following Cook's very 

 blundering method. Indeed at Oxford it was insisted that the 

 Hawaiian Group was not only "Sandwich Islands" but was in the 

 South Pacific, and there were large printed labels to that effedt. 

 On the continent the orthography is in advance of that of the very 

 conservative scientific men of England : It maj' be noted here that 

 the committee in charge of the exploration of the zoology of these 

 islands by Mr. R. C. ly. Perkins, whose expenses were borne 

 equally by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 the Royal Society and the Bishop Museum, is styled (as it might 

 properly have been in the days of Cook and Vancouver) "Sandwich 

 Islands Committee", and the chairman Sir Alfred Newton declared 

 that under the term Hawaiian Islands they could not have secured 

 an appropriation! 



To return to the Natural History Colle(5lions at South Ken- 

 sington: the following are the notes made in what was certainly a 

 very hurried and superficial examination. There is no criticism of 

 the immense scientific value of the colledlion, nor of the vast work 

 and learning that Sir William Flower and his able assistants have 

 expended on the museum; it is simply as the place appeared to a 

 visitor who had seen the principal similar collections in the world. 



"The colle(ftion of corals (especially the Madreporarian) is 

 very fine, usually illustrated with colored diagrams of the polyp. 

 The Reptilia are generally well mounted, and the Saurians es- 

 pecially so. Gigantic L,and Tortoises abound. Fish are by no 

 means attracftively arranged, but the Birds are intended to be capi- 

 tal, and in many cases they certainl}^ are as near perfe(ft as the 

 taxidermist is likely to make them; in some, however, there is a 

 verj^ "artificial flower" atmosphere about them. In the Botanical 

 Hall at the top of the building large specimens of Raoulia exiniia, 

 Hooker, the "Vegetable Sheep" of New Zealand were very inter- 

 esting: the drawings of Fungi excellent. On a huge section of 



