Bishop MuseumExplore

Journeys

The expeditions, reassembled

Every dated label is a diary entry. Read a collector’s labels in order and the voyage comes back: the islands in sequence, the days at each, the specimens from every stop. 11 journeys so far, 1933 to 1960, 9,269 specimens between them.

10 collectors and expeditions487 days in the field254,157 km between stops5,104 photographed specimens

F. Raymond Fosberg

56 islands · Apr – Nov 1946

F. Raymond Fosberg across 56 islands, April – November 1946

2,439 specimens · 102 stops · 209 days · 105,682 km

Masahiko Takamatsu

31 islands · Dec 1935 – Jun 1936

Masahiko Takamatsu across 31 islands, December 1935 – June 1936

2,083 specimens · 77 stops · 205 days · 15,209 km

Ernani Meñez

50 islands · Jun – Sep 1960

Ernani Meñez across 50 islands, June – September 1960

2,317 specimens · 38 stops · 100 days · 40,857 km

T. Hosokawa

17 islands · Jul – Nov 1933

T. Hosokawa across 17 islands, July – November 1933

500 specimens · 50 stops · 137 days · 17,296 km

H.A. Miller

26 islands · Jun – Aug 1960

H.A. Miller across 26 islands, June – August 1960

410 specimens · 37 stops · 90 days · 20,099 km

Sydney Glassman

8 islands · Jun – Sep 1949

Sydney Glassman across 8 islands, June – September 1949

524 specimens · 41 stops · 82 days · 1,957 km

H.O. Whittier

21 islands · Jun – Aug 1960

H.O. Whittier across 21 islands, June – August 1960

310 specimens · 20 stops · 77 days · 1,577 km

Benjamin C. Stone

22 islands · Feb – Aug 1957

Benjamin C. Stone across 22 islands, February – August 1957

301 specimens · 47 stops · 169 days · 33,594 km

Harold St.John

15 islands · Dec 1945 – May 1946

Harold St.John across 15 islands, December 1945 – May 1946

194 specimens · 23 stops · 147 days · 16,487 km

Clarence C.Y. Wong

8 islands of Micronesia · Jul – Aug 1946

Clarence C.Y. Wong across 8 islands of Micronesia, July – August 1946

151 specimens · 7 stops · 50 days · 1,399 km

T. Hosokawa

4 islands · Jun – Aug 1938

T. Hosokawa across 4 islands, June – August 1938

40 specimens · 12 stops · 52 days

How a journey is found

Every specimen with a full date (year, month and day; a bare “1 January” is treated as a missing day) and a named collector is a diary entry. For each collector the days are read in order, each day given the place most of its labels name. The place where a collector spent more than forty percent of their days, and at least sixty of them, is home: days there are left out.

A gap of more than 21 days between collecting days ends one journey and begins the next. A journey must run five to four hundred days, hold at least forty specimens and touch at least two places. Within it, consecutive days inside the same or a neighbouring tenth-of-a-degree cell (about eleven kilometres) are one stop; the stop’s point is the mean of its labels’ coordinates, or the island’s centre when none carry any.

Companions are collectors whose own labels put them in the same cell on the same days. Staff can name a journey, write about it, feature it or hide it; those words survive every rebuild. Everything else is read off the specimens and rebuilt by harvest.mjs expeditions as the records improve.