Haast.—On the Early Wistory of the Canterbury Museum. 507 
tion of Echinodermata, both recent and fossil, had been forwarded, and it 
arrived in the latter part of that year. We also received a little later, for a 
small collection of New Zealand bird-skins, a fine series of European skins 
from the late George von Frauenfeld, the Director of the Imperial Zoologi- 
cal Museum, Vienna. 
Thus, whilst accumulating material from New Zealand and abroad, I 
_ continued with the work of the geological survey in my old office, where 
the walls were lined with cases, receiving here many visitors, who took an 
interest in the collection hitherto brought together, or who wanted informa- 
tion of various kinds. In August, 1864, when the first account of the con- 
tents of the Museum was rendered to the Provincial Government, 5,860 
specimens had already been catalogued. 
In the Intercolonial Exhibition of Otago, in the beginning of 1865, the 
Canterbury Museum exhibited a large number of specimens both geological 
and botanical, together with the geological section of the railway tunnel 
between Lyttelton and Christchurch, as far as the work of construction had 
advanced at that time. This section was illustrated by a number of rock 
specimens ; this being the first instance that a tunnel was made through 
the wall of an ancient erater, great interest was manifested by the scientific 
Visitors of that first New Zealand Exhibition. During my stay in Dunedin, 
I made some excursions to the Otago goldfields, and brought a series of 
Specimens back with me, which still illustrate the rich localities where the 
first rushes took place. During a journey, lasting about six months, in the 
newly discovered goldfields in Westland, which was then a part of Canter- 
bury, T also collected in every direction, and besides a large series of geologi- 
cal specimens, brought back with me a number of bird-skins and plants. 
At my suggestion, the Provincial Government at the same time gave in- 
structions to Mr. George Sale, their Commissioner at Hokitika, to purchase 
samples of gold from the several principal claims, and to obtain with them 
wash-dirts from which the gold was derived, so as to have a record of 
the rich ground then worked by a large number of miners, who had flocked 
there from all parts of New Zealand and Australia. Having now obtained 
& considerable quantity of New Zealand bird-skins, I looked out for a taxi- 
_ dermist, whom I might entrust with setting them up. The late Mr. P. 
i. Puller having offered his services, I procured, not without some trouble, a 
‘tant of £25 from the Provincial Government on 3rd August, 1865, to make 
: a beginning : A that by December 
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