118 THE NATURAUST OF THE ST. CROIX 



makes no less than seven quotations from notes by Mr. 

 Boardman, who says the last one of this species he knows 

 to have been taken at Grand Manan was shot in April, 

 1871. " I sent the skin to John Wallace of New York 

 to be mounted for Prof. S. F. Baird of the Smithsonian 

 Institution. Not knowing its value, Wallace let some 

 one get the skin from him and it was thus lost to the 

 Smithsonian as he could not tell who had it." Writing 

 to Mr. Dutcher, October 29, 1890, Mr. Boardman says : 



" I began to collect birds about fifty years ago and 

 wanted to get a pair of each species — I did not care for 

 more. The Labrador Duck I procured without much 

 trouble and if I had any duplicates sent to me I did not 

 save them any more than I should have saved duplicates 

 of Scoters or Old Squaws. I have no doubt I may have 

 had others. I had shooters all about the coast of Grand 

 Manan and Bay of Fundy sending me anything new or 

 odd. Anything they sent me that I already had mounted 

 generally went to the manure heap. About twenty years 

 since, Messrs. John G. Bell and D. G. Elliot of New 

 York wrote to me to try and get them some Labrador 

 Ducks. I wrote to all my collectors, but the ducks had 

 all gone. It seems very strange that such a bird should 

 become extinct as it was a good flier." 



Prof. Ora W. Knight, in his Birds of Maine, published 

 in 1897, says: " George A. Boardman of Calais has 

 observed and taken two hundred and fifty-seven species 

 within Washington county. His list is copiously anno- 

 tated and is the result of long years of careful observa- 

 tion." 



Baird, Brewer and Ridgway who published their His- 

 tory of North American Birds between 1874 and 1884, 



