8 Director's Report for 1917. 
Oahu. Owing to the lack of a curator of ornithology in the 
museum, or an active member of the Audubon Society in the Ter-. 
ritory, the Curator felt impelled to interest local people in the pro- 
tection of birds and other land 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 wellin hand. The Curator has 
further cooperated with Chief Forester C. S. 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 by 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 rest of the material he used in writing his //ora of the 
Hawatian 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] 
