508 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
In the beginning of January, 1866, I went to the north-eastern portion 
of the province, when Fuller came with me, and from which we brought a 
further number of skins and skeletons of New Zealand birds with us on our 
return, and those new to our collection were now mounted. From the rest 
78 specimens were selected and sent about the middle of April to Professor 
L. Agassiz, in Cambridge, Mass., as a return. I note this as being the first 
large collection sent out by the Canterbury Museum. 
About this time a further sum of £100 was granted for show-cases, 
which enabled me to have all three sides of the large room lined with them, 
so that the mounted birds could be placed to advantage, and, moreover, be 
protected from dust and insects. I find in the notes of the presentations in 
1865 the following ladies and gentlemen :—Mr. George Sale, then Govern- 
ment Commissioner in Hokitika; Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Cox, Orari ; Mr. 
John Rochfort, Major Scott, Messrs Luxmore, C. J. Tripp, and J. D. Enys, 
as having presented New Zealand bird-skins and eggs. In 1866 the number 
of donors reached already 80, so that the space of time at my command 
precludes me from giving a complete list. 
Leaving Mr. R. L. Holmes, the meteorological officer, in charge of the 
collections, I started in the beginning of March for the sources of the Rakaia 
in company with the taxidermist, Fuller, who now received a salary from 
the Provincial Government. After an absence of nearly seven weeks we 
returned to Christchurch, bringing with us, besides large collections of rocks, 
minerals, and fossils, an extensive herbarium and about 160 bird-skins, 
many of which were new to our Museum collection. 
After my return, and with the assistance of several friends, of whom 
many still at the present time take great interest in the progress of that a 
public institution, new efforts were made that a Museum should be built. 
The result of our endeavours consisted in the promise of some members of 
the Provincial Executive, that a sum of money would be placed upon the 
estimates of the coming session ; however, before the same took place it 
was evident that such a step soda not lead to any success, and the matier 
was again postponed for another year. 
In the winter of 1866, two collections of bird-skins and some other 
specimens of natural history were sent to the Australian Museum in Sydney, 
of which the late Gerhard Krefft was at that time eurator, and another was 
forwarded to the Zoological Museum at Vienna. A return collection nner 
nd gi 
