4 Director's Annual Report. 
acted as Assistant, to our great satisfaction, died of typhoid fever 
not long after his return to his regular school work on Honokaa, 
Hawaii, and every member of the staff mourns the loss of a col- 
league and dear friend. 
The Curatorship of Ornithology has not been filled, although 
there have been applications for the position, because with the 
limited income of the Museum it is impossible to fill all the posi- 
tions that should be made in a museum of the size and rank of this 
institution, and, as much work had been done on the collection and 
preservation of birds until the specimens were very numerous and 
the portion of our library devoted to this branch was rich in the 
working literature of ornithology, it seemed better to turn our 
limited powers to some other department where a skilled worker 
was greatly needed, and such an one was unquestionably Botany. 
Not only do our valuable collections need the care of an expert, 
but they should be so increased that by exchange we could acquire 
ample specimens of the Polynesian flora on other groups, such as 
New Zealand, Tahiti, Samoa and Tonga. With the exception of 
a good collection of New Zealand ferns we have nothing from the 
rest of the Pacific, and as we have few, if any, botanists on this 
group, the Director finds great difficulty in answering the frequent 
requests for specimens or definite botanical information. Witha 
competent botanist we could be of no little use to many institu- 
tions and botanical workers abroad as well as able to acquire new 
material in this line for our herbarium and cases. Our library 
should be largely increased in botanical literature, although it is 
already not to be despised. Still there are whole families of 
Hawaiian plants needing thorough study and illustration, such as 
the very remarkable and interesting tree lobelias so important a part 
of the Hawaiian flora. I had hoped to take this in hand myself 
and had collected much material for illustration and had prepared 
a few colored plates, but the pressing work of administration has 
hitherto made the prosecution of such a great work impossible for 
me, and I had thought perhaps if a suitable botanist and collector 
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