Barefoot on Lava: Naturalist R.C.L. Perkins in Hawai‘i, 1892–1912

Neal L. Evenhuis

The Hawaiian Historical Society invites its members and friends to a program titled Barefoot on Lava: Naturalist R.C.L. Perkins in Hawai‘i, 1892–1912, presented by Dr. Neal L.Evenuis, chairman of natural sciences at the Bishop Museum. The program will be held at the Mission Memorial Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 13, 2007. The program is free and open to the public.

Robert Cyril Layton Perkins, a British naturalist, was one of the last to see some of Hawai‘i’s great forest birds when he arrived in the Islands in 1892 to survey birds, insects, and snails for the Royal Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science. His collections and fieldwork resulted in the masterpiece Fauna Hawaiiensis.

Neal Evenhuis has assembled for the first time the journals and correspondence of Perkins during his collection years from 1892 to 1901. He will present an illustrated travelogue of Perkins’s explorations and collecting in the rainforests of Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, Molokai, Lāna‘i, Maui, and Hawai‘i Island. His presentation will include many old photographs and collecting maps that give a picture of the Islands as they were a century ago.

Evenhuis's book on Perkins, Barefoot on Lava, published by the Bishop Museum Press earlier this year, will be available for purchase at the program.

The Mission Memorial Auditorium is located at 550 South King Street, next to Honolulu Hale. Free parking is available in the City and County Civic Parking Garage. Enter on Alapai Street or on South Beretania Street across from the Board of Water Supply.

For further information, contact the Hawaiian Historical Society office, 560 Kawaiaha‘o Street, Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96813. Telephone 808-537-6271. E-mail bedunn@lava.net.