Annual Reports 127 



to the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum and Botan- 

 ical Garden of the Brooklyn Institute, in return for assistance and cour- 

 tesies extended by these institutions to our museum. Unfortunately we 

 were not represented at the 1914 meeting of the American Association of 

 Museums, which was held in Chicago and Milwaukee ; and we are not 

 likely to be represented this year, inasmuch as the meeting is to be held 

 still further away, in San Francisco. 



Miss Agnes L. Pollard, curator, spent the larger part of her vacation at 

 and in the vicinity of Providence, visiting the Roger Williams Park Mu- 

 seum and the Rhode Island School of Design. Miss Pollard was also 

 delegated by me to represent the museum staff at a conference of museum 

 instructors, called by Mr. Henry W. Kent, and held at the Metropolitan 

 Museum of Art on May 7 and 8, 191 5. A summary report of this confer- 

 ence is herewith submitted. 



Mr. Howard H. Cleaves, curator, was occupied during his vacation with 

 bird photography, on Gardiner's Island, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and 

 Muskeget, some of the results of which have been shown at our meetings. 

 Mr. Cleaves has also lectured on sixteen occasions in our public schools, 

 at the Brooklyn Institute and before various clubs, societies and scientific 

 bodies, on various phases of bird life, to a total of approximately two 

 thousand auditors, and it has occurred to me as worthy of record that for 

 only three of these lectures was any compensation received. 



In connection with the Staten Island Civic League the Association was 

 represented at the County Fair held at Dongan Hills last September by 

 photographs of museum exhibits, statistical placards, copies of the earliest 

 and latest issues of the Bulletin and Proceedings, etc. ; and copies of the 

 Bulletin and circulars of information were on hand for free distribution. 

 The director has also had the privilege of serving during the year as a 

 member of the tree planting committee and the committee on city plan of 

 the League. 



Museum Staff and Employees 



The routine work of the museum is arranged on as systematic a basis 

 as is feasible under the existing conditions and with the means at our 

 disposal. 



In general the administrative and educational work and the arrangement 

 and care of the collections is apportioned between the director and the two 

 curators. The care of the museum building and annex, and the safeguard- 

 ing of them and their contents, is the duty of the janitor, night watch- 

 man and the two museum guards. Practically, however, the individual 

 work and duties of all are elastic and more or less interchangeable. This 

 is necessary by reason of our limited number and, in consequence, the 

 impossibility of defining the exact duties which each one may be called 

 upon to perform in case of emergencies or conditions which may unex- 

 pectedly arise at any time, as we have learned by frequent experiences. 



