REPORT 
HE year 1909 has been one of progress in this Museum, 
but still more one of preparation. After some years of great 
inconvenience and repression from want of workrooms and 
of safe storerooms, towards the end of the year arrangements were 
made to build a Laboratory commensurate with the needs of such 
a museum as this has become in the twenty years of its existence, 
aud probably before the end of another year this long desired 
building will be ready for use. 
For more than a year the Museum staff has been insufficient 
for the work to be done, and our laboratory space precluded the 
employment of additional specialists, but the spirit of loyalty to 
the best interests of the Museum has animated our little company 
to efforts that seemed almost impossible in our limited and incon- 
venient quarters. We have been scattered; one department work- 
ing in Manoa Valley, another in Nuuanu Valley, while a third 
has operated in the midst of the fish market region. Such segre- 
gation has somewhat lessened the resulting accomplishments, and 
the prospect of a new portion of the building where all depart- 
ments have their own quarters within reach of the collections and 
the working library is a most agreeable one. 
It has not seemed well to recommend the appointment of a 
marine zoologist for the staff because we had no suitable place 
for the preparation and study of specimens of the wonderful marine 
life to be found on our reefs at all seasons of the year. Nota day 
of the three hundred and sixty-five when fear of malaria haunts 
the shore or a low temperature checks the life current of the coral 
polyp or any other of the (often undescribed) inhabitants of the 
clear waters that surround these islands. In no marine zoological 
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