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During the year Mr. Salmon paid a visit to Canterbury Museum to study the Hutton collcction of Orthoptera, with particular reference to the Phasmidoe. Later, in company with Mr. G. Howes, of Dunedin, he visited the Central Otago district and secured a number of specimens of Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Collembola, Opiliones, and Phasmidse, in the two latter groups including many new species. Mr. R. R. Forster has worked on the New Zealand Opiliones whenever opportunity offered between periods of military duty. During the year Mr. Salmon published the following papers on the Collembola : — In the Records of the Dominion Museum, Vol. 1 : " New Genera and Species of New Zealand Collembola." In the Trans. Roy. Soc. of N.Z., Vol. 72 : "A New Species of Onychiurus (Collembola) from New Zealand " and " New Records of Collembola from New Zealand, with Descriptions of New Genera and Species." Botanical Department A valued contribution to the herbarium was a collection of fifty mounted specimens of seaweeds presented by Mr. V. W. Lindauer. This brings to one hundred and fifty species the fine series received from Mr. Lindauer. A collection of plants was made on D'Urville Island during two visits by the Director and has been added to the herbarium. The following papers were published by the Director in the Records of the Dominion Museum, Vol. 1:— (1) " The New Vegetation of the Sea Floor raised by the Hawke's Bay Earthquake of 1931." (2) " The Genus Coriaria in New Zealand." (3) " New Species of Coprosma from New Guinea and the Hawaiian Islands." Geology Department A large portion of the collection was unpacked during the year and temporarily sorted into cardboard herbarium boxes. The accessions during the year include a collection of microscope slides (including diatoms) from the fossil marine beds at Oamaru, and crystals of tuhualite, segerine, and reibeckite. A sample of gold from Cape Terawhiti was presented by Mr. R. Gillespie. Photographic Department Work has proceeded with the printing and cataloguing of the negative collections ; but this year the principal activity of the department has centred round the acquisition of the Burton Bros.' collection of negatives. This collection, comprising about twelve thousand negatives, mainly in whole-plate size, but also in small lots of quarter-plate, 12 in. by 10 in., 15 in. by 12 in., and 17 in. by 6| in. sizes, contains photographs of most of the towns in New Zealand in the early days, in addition to many valuable scenic pictures of such places as the Pink and the White Terraces, Forty-mile Bush, &c., also early New Zealand ships, Maori villages, carvings, &c., The earliest picture is one of Dunedin in 1856. There also are photographs of Samoa, Fiji, Gilbert Islands, Tonga, and Pa-ngo Pango, and the penguins and seals on the Snares, Bounty, and Auckland Islands. Many of these early negatives are taken on wet plates. All of them are titled and, being varnished, are excellently preserved. Library All of the books have been placed on shelves brought up from the ground floor and re-erected in the bird gallery. They are roughly classified in their new position. During the year thirty-seven volumes were added to the library. These included gifts from the Turnbull Library, Auckland Museum, G. Walker, American Museum of Natural History, and British Museum. The remainder were purchased. Museum Publication Volume 1, No. 1, of the Records of the Dominion Museum was published on 4th September, 1942. It contained sixty-seven pages of text and twenty-one plates. Besides papers by members of the staff of the Museum, there was included an account by Mr. R. S. Duff, of the Canterbury Museum, of a Moriori marohara in the Dominion Museum collection. Education Service With the closing of the Museum to the public, school visits ceased. Circulation of the Museum loan collections, however, was continued on, a restricted scale. The present arrangements are that local schools—Wellington proper, Ngaio, Khandallah, Eastbourne, and the Hutt Valley—borrow cases on the library system. Under this arrangement a school orders in advance the case it wishes to receive at any date. Fortnightly such cases are delivered, each school receiving from three to six exhibits. The country circuits of school cases in their previous forms were discontinued, but sets of exhibits were placed in the hands of provincial Education Boards for their private circulation. Film Evenings Consequent on the closing of the Museum, this activity of the institution, which was so popular with the public, has had to cease for the time being. Thanks The thanks of the Museum Management Committee are tendered to the press for assistance in directing public attention to the Museum and its activities. W. R. B. Oliver, Director.

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