Barefoot on Lava

Book excerpt: Charged by the Royal Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science to access, observe and collect the fauna of Hawaiʻi, R.C.L. Perkins collected almost all classes and phyla of terrestrial zoology specimens, including one of the best collections of insects and birds from Hawaiʻi ever assembled by one person. His fieldwork and collections are the basis for the masterful Fauna Hawaiiensis volumes. While Perkins' original field notes were lost, in this work Neal Evenhuis has compiled and annotated the surviving notes and correspondence of Perkins and included accounts and anecdotes by friends and colleagues to shed light on the natural history of Hawaiʻi, the collection process in remote areas, and the remarkable naturalist.