4 DiTcdor s Annual Riport. 



years of study only to find, as must always be the case, that the 

 limits of his knowledge simply become more defined by the study. 

 Our Hawaiian collection is by far the best in the world, as it 

 should be, but in very many important matters it is still defedlive. 

 The rapid fading of aboriginal lore from the memory of the present 

 :geiieration, and the rapid passing of the elders of the race, makes 

 it very difficult to add to our knowledge from anything beyond a 

 study of the remains and a comparison with the habits and acftions 

 of other neighboring races and of other branches of the Polynesians. 

 It makes painfully evident the gaps in the evidence colledled by 

 the Director in his notes nearly forty years ago, and gives rise to 

 vain regrets that the knowledge of what is needed today could not 

 have been his when as a young man he collected all the items he 

 then knew how to gather. The sciences of Ethnology and Anthro- 

 pology were not then in existence as they are known today, and 

 folklore had not begun to be coUedled among the backward peoples 

 •of the Pacific Ocean. 



The ancient customs have been forgotten or so far corrupted 

 as to be of little use save as a record of change, and we must study 

 the implements remaining at least as carefully as the hunter studies 

 the spoor of the game that has preceded him in the path. A large 

 •colledtion of these adds value to the study, and we have here, for- 

 tunately, the largest and best in the world. In repeating this I am 

 not unmindful that there are certain private collecftions on these 

 Islands, and elsewhere, that should be added to this Museum before 

 they are scattered beyond our reach. Already, the past year, a 

 feather cloak of a material not in our collection has passed out of 

 our reach into a more fortunate museum, and I know of no other 

 of this kind accessible. The Hawaiian collections that can be ob- 

 tained, and that supplement our own, should be at once gathered 

 into this treasure house. Five thousand dollars would enable the 

 Direcftor to add these things. At some future time their loss will 

 be vainly lamented. 



In the department of Osteology we are sadly deficient, for we 



