8 D i recto? 's Report for igry. 



Oahu. Owing to the lack of a curator of ornitholog>- in the 

 museum, or an active member of the Audubon Society in the Ter- 

 ritory, the Curator felt inij^elled to interest local people in the j^ro- 

 tection of birds and other laud forms of native life in places where 

 government protection had not been afforded. The Legislature of 

 this year passed a law authorizing the Board of Agriculture and 

 Forestry to draw up regulations to control the unfortunate situa- 

 tion, and the Board has the matter well in hand. The Curator has 

 further cooperated with Chief Forester C. vS. Judd in placing warn- 

 ing signs on some of the islands." 



Botany. — Owing to the unfortunate illness of the Curator, no 

 full account can be given of what has been a very busy year in 

 this department. The Curator spent some months on Lanai, Kauai, 

 and Maui and collected many plants, how many must appear in 

 a subsequent report. Exchanges have also been numerous and 

 important. He was engaged in poisoning his late accessions at 

 the time he was seized with his illness, and attributed it, in part at 

 least, to this disagreeable work. No doubt when his report ap- 

 pears it will show^ a decided increase in not only the number of 

 specimens, but in the value of the herbarium as a whole. 



The most important addition to the herbarium during the year 

 was due to the fortunate discovery b}' Rev. J. M. Lydgate, of 

 Lihue, Kauai, in his former home at Laupahoehoe, Hawaii, of an 

 almost forgotten collection of Hawaiian plants collected or named 

 by Dr. Hillebrand numbering some four hundred and fifty speci- 

 mens. This was examined by the Curator and found in excellent 

 condition and the Trustees at once purchased it. It is fortunate 

 that so much of Dr. Hillebrand 's collection should be here in 

 Hawaii; the re.st of the material he used in writing his F/o?-a of the 

 Hawaiian Islands is elsewhere. 



Ornithology. — As the Museum has had no curator of orni- 

 thology, it has fallen to the lot of the Director to remove the entire 

 stored collection from the strawboard boxes in which they were 



[254] 



