iS Director' s Anmial Report. 



iiuini)er of steamers arriving, and there are several things in re- 

 gard to these visitors that seem worth noticing. First, their aver- 

 age sta)^ in the Museum is less than fifteen minutes; then they are 

 almost exclusively American or European; they require more 

 supervision than the mixed nationalities on public days; they have 

 the disease that seems to attack many modern tourists all over the 

 world (which compels them to annex plates, spoons or napkins on 

 steamers or at hotels, or the sec5lion numbers in Pullmann cars), 

 and as none of these souvenirs are to be found in the Museum, the 

 specimens being carefully protedled in cases, all exposed labels 

 are taken as proof that they have been in the Museum; they rarely 

 buy a guide book. This will show that at times there are in the 

 Museum other curiosities than those belonging there. Less 

 troublesome and more amusing are the parties that come with a 

 leader who "knows it all" and therefore disdains a guide book. 

 One such leader was lately heard telling his party that the fine 

 specimen of a sperm whale in Hawaiian Hall was not a sperm 

 whale at all (the Museum people ought to know better), it was a 

 bottle-nose whale. Another informed his companions that the 

 stones of which the adzes were formerly made were ver\' rare, 

 in fact had been exhausted; still another, that these same stones 

 were all meteorites! It sometimes seems hardly worth while to 

 label specimens. 



TABLE OF ATTENDANCE. 



Janufiry . 

 Fobniary . 

 Mari'h . . . 



April 



May 



June 



July 



AujruHt .. . 

 September 

 October . 

 November 

 December . 



Totals . 



436 

 553 

 4r.8 

 760 

 394 

 429 

 798 

 350 

 424 

 484 

 278 

 337 



190 

 280 

 269 

 200 

 210 

 177 

 115 

 84 

 217 

 202 

 111 

 118 



53 

 45 

 119 

 45 

 31 

 72 

 39 

 32 

 52 

 71 

 26 

 35 



150 

 529 

 291 



2;)8 



203 

 204 

 147 



82 

 242 

 184 

 109 

 128 



489 

 434 

 283 

 309 

 19] 

 148 

 153 

 117 

 204 

 118 



Open on 



Average 

 Attendance, 



129 

 180 

 181 

 185 

 123 

 117 

 122 

 87 

 95 

 115 



1170 

 1 (>32 

 1667 

 1698 

 1150 

 1209 

 1 299 

 734 

 1129 

 1079 

 761 

 76 N 



14.296 



[262] 



