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all classes of specimens are not included,. The registration number may cover a single specimen of a large number. Card indexes of the various kinds of specimens are made subsequently. The system I propose to substitute consists of a manuscript general accession register, in which one number may cover a large number of accessions obtained at the same time and in the same way. Later each specimen will be classified and distributed to its proper department, and will receive a departmental register number. By the use of typewriters, and carbon papers, and a printed form it will be possible to make one operation serve for the departmental register and the preparation of card indexes by name, locality, location in the Museum, or any other relationship which it is desired to index. For many reasons it is not desirable to introduce the new system until a new Museum building is available. Library. For reasons of economy during the year, few purchases of books have been made, and the binding of the exchanges has been postponed. Collections. The most important addition to the collections has been the acquisition of the Hamilton Maori and fossil-bird collections by purchase. These collections Were already deposited in the Museum, but the checking of the specimens by the register occupied a considerable amount of time. Other important purchases were a large collection of fossil bird-bones from a limestone cave at Coonoor, from Mr. M. Conway ; a collection of ethnological specimens from British New Guinea ; and two old smoked Maori heads. Many other desirable collections have been under offer, but have had to be declined owing to the economy necessitated by the war. Amongst deposits of interest should be mentioned a fine series of twelve adzes in various stages of manufacture, deposited by Captain Bollons. Other interesting accessions are recorded in the reports of the various departments and in the list of donations. Naturalhistory and ethnological collections have been made by the various officers when opportunity presented itself, and much quiet work has been done in this way. The existing state of parts of the collections may be gathered from the appended reports by the assistants. Overhauling of the Maori Collection. The Hon. the Minister having decided to remove and store the more valuable specimens of Maori art in the Museum until the provision of a fireproof building, a preliminary overhaul of the collections is being made. All. unsound or bored articles have been set aside for special treatment, while the sound specimens have been cleaned and oiled or painted, according to their previous treatment, and temporarily placed back again in the Museum. The improvement in their appearance has been marked. (Some months must elapse before the overhauling is completedResearch Work on the Collections. At the time of my appointment as Director I was engaged in preparing a monograph on the Tertiary Brachiopoda of New Zealand for the Geological Survey. This Work is still unfinished, but such time as could bo spared from Museum duties has been devoted to it, and to a revision also of the Recent Brachiopoda. I have also been asked to describe the Brachiopoda collected by the Australian Antarctic. Expedition, and have these collections on deposit; and in addition have examined a number of Tasmanian Tertiary Braohiopoda for Mr. Atkinson, of Penguin. Several preliminary papers have been written, of which only one is as yet published —viz., " Types of Folding in the Terebralulacea " (Geol. Mag. Dec. 6, vol. 2 (1915), pp. 71 -76). Mr. H. Hamilton has, at my request, studied two specimens of ribbon-fish (Trachypterus) acquired during the year, and is preparing a paper on|the subject. Mr. E. Best submits the following account of his ethnological work:— Ethnological Work. I was employed by the late Director towards the end of MHO with a view to the compilation of ethnographical matter pertaining to the Maori race, and the publishing thereof in a series of bulletins to be issued by the Museum. During 1910 and 1911 much of my time was taken up with other work, but since then it has been principally devoted to the collection and compilation of matter descriptive of Native industries. Bearing in mind the fact that the major part of published records connected with the Maori treat only of their tribal history, which data are of but slight interest locally, and absolutely useless to anthropologists, it was decided that a series of bulletins descriptive of the technology of the Natives of New Zealand should be compiled- This is a field of inquiry that has been much neglected, little matter having been published that shows systematic and careful work, outside the three fine monographs prepared by Mr. Justice Chapman, Dr. Buck, and the Rev. H. Williams. These three papers —illustrating Native methods of working greenstone, the manufacture of textile fabrics, and the whare Maori —are probably the best articles on Maori industries ever produced. We have been recently notified by officials of the Royal Anthropological Institute that such data are desired and welcomed by anthropologists in Great Britain and elsewhere.. It was also considered highly desirable to record all available information concerning the manufacture and uses of all Maori exhibits in the Dominion Museum. These objects are illustrative