Director's Annual Report. 5 
could be obtained, I might attempt to finish this task. Some one 
should do this, for at present the family is in sad confusion and needs 
ample revision and illustration. It would add greatly to the value 
of our publications could a monograph on the Hawaiian Lobeliaceze 
be issued from our press. I have for some months been conducting 
negotiations looking to securing such a botanical assistant. 
We also greatly need a marine zoologist, not only to work on 
our reefs and study the many undescribed or little known species 
of marine life, but to complete the grand collection of fishes 
which so far as shown in the admirably colored casts prepared by 
Mr. J. W. Thompson, our artist, greatly interest and delight our 
visitors, but more important still add to the known species, and 
increase our knowledge of species already named. As a single 
instance, during the past year has been added to our collection a 
large eel common in Samoan waters, but never before reported from 
these islands: nor is this a solitary case; in many other specimens 
in our collection of casts we have either found new species, or old 
species for the first time reported from these waters. 
If we had the income needed to secure the additional workers 
we have not at present, nor do I see any immediate prospect of 
securing such conveniences as are necessary for their work, let 
alone space within the Museum walls for storage of the specimens 
they may be expected to add. For months I have endeavored to 
formulate plans which could meet the needs of such a museum as 
this, and after presenting to the Trustees three successive sets of 
plans, the second and third pared down from the preceding until 
the attenuation can be carried no farther and leave vitality enough 
in the structure to be of real use, still the funds available do not 
admit, in the opinion of a majority of the Trustees, of beginning to 
build. Ido not despair, for the architect who planned the origi- 
nal structure of this Museum gave only a closet under the stair- 
way (which now hardly suffices for the janitors to store their im- 
plements) for all the Museum work. ‘Then came the cellar under 
Polynesian Hall, and at last the temporary wooden buildings, 
[95] 
