REPORT of the 

 PROVINCIAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 



FOR THE YEAR 1921. 



By Francis Kek.mode, Dikector. 



OBJECTS. 



(a.) To secure and preserve specimens illustrating the natural history of the Province. 



(&.) To collect anthropological material relating to the aboriginal races of the Province. 



(c.) To obtain information respecting the natural sciences, relating particularly to the 



natural history of the Province, and diffuse knowledge regarding the same. 



ADMISSION. 

 The Provincial Museum is open, free, to the public daily throughout the year from 9 a.m. to 

 5 p.m. (except New Year's Day, Good Friday, and Christmas Day) ; it is also open on Sunday 

 afternoons from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. from May 1st until the end of October. 



VISITORS. 



The actual number of visitors whose names are recorded on the register of the Museum 

 is 22,550. This does not include Mr. and Mrs. and very often several members of a family; 

 teachers and their classes whose attendance has increased materially during the last year in 

 connection with their nature-studies; and it must be understood that these figures do not 

 include Asiatics and others. The following figures will give some idea of those who recorded 

 their names during the months of : January, 1,245 ; February, 1,567 ; March, 1,413 ; April, 1,221 ; 

 May, 1,004; June, 1,876; July, 4,022; August, 4,614; September, 2,061; October, 1,347; November, 

 864; December, 716. 



ACTIVITIES. 



The Public Works Department, having completed the excavation of the basement of the, 

 Museum, carried on the work so as to put this portion of the building into shape for exhibition- 

 rooms for anthropology. The floors have been cemented throughout, the walls all plastered, 

 and windows had to be put in through the basement walls so as to give light and air. The 

 Public Works Department also carried on its extensive work in regard to renewing the electric- 

 light system and have it divided into sections, so that it is only necessary to use portions of 

 the lighting system at times, thus practising economy to a great extent. 



Since the Public Works Department has finished the alterations, the Director is now in a 

 position to carry out the long-ueeded want of arranging the valuable anthropological material 

 which has been stored for a number of years. This material has been transferred from the 

 temporary building to the basement of the Museum, and is now practically safe from all danger 

 of fire. All the anthropological exhibition which is now on the first floor of the Museum will 

 be transferred to the basement, so as to arrange all the exhibition of tins material according 

 to the different tribes of Indians of this Province. The arrangement will be similar to that which 

 was carried out in the exhibition on the first floor; that is, according to house and house furniture, 

 implements of war and the chase, etc. 



A carpenter has beeu employed for several months making cases for this material; the staff 

 is now busily engaged in arranging the collection for exhibition, and it is hoped to have the 

 exhibition halls of anthropology open to the public not later than May 1st. 



The study series of mammals and birds, which were also stored in a temporary building, 

 have now been removed to the study-room on the main floor of the Museum and are available 

 to those visitors Avho wish to consult them. 



A List of "The Flora of Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands" has been issued from the 

 press and is now available to those students wbo are interested in botany, and no doubt will be 

 quite a help in giving the distribution of the flora of Vancouver Island. We know that this list 

 is to a great extent not complete, and hope that it will be the moans whereby students will aid 

 the Provincial collections by gathering material that is not represented in the collections from 



