262 THK NATURALIST OF THE ST. CROIX 



I shall be glad to offer you a contributor's copj' of our book, 

 but the expense in having plates colored will not allow me to 

 offer you one with plates. These contributors' copies are twenty 

 which we had struck off on thinner paper without plates and 

 loose in the covers, for people who assist us on the continent in 

 sending notes from time to time and a couple of copies are still 

 unappropriated. Three parts are ready and the rest ob : 67 will 

 be sent from time to time as they appear. The whole work will 

 be of rather alarming size, say about 600 plates and about 3,500 

 pages of letterpress. 



How can I send the copy to you? Shall I send it to the 

 Smithsonian bookseller here, as the cost of book post would be 

 awful. Do you know if I could get any one to pick out for me all 

 information as to the breeding of the arctic birds common to 

 America and EuropeV They have heaps of information at Wash- 

 ington but Baird has not time to communicate it. 



I myself am (I am glad to say) in splendid health, and since 

 the loss of my hair have never known what a touch of illness is. 

 I can't make it out at all for though I was not really ill it seems 

 to have carried off all traces of the feeling of illness I used to 

 have if I did not get out of town every week or two ; but I have 

 not a single trace of hair from my head to my heels. It would 

 puzzle a Comanche to " raise my hair" now, but 1 kinder calculate 

 that he might catch a Tartar if he tried, for all my bodily strength 

 has returned to its fullest extent. 



I must, however, now close as I am hard up for time (a very 

 general complaint with me) and with very kind regards believe me 

 Yours truly, 



H. E. Dresser. 



The correspondence between Mr. Boardman and Robert 

 Ridgway of the Smithsonian Institution extended over 

 a period of twenty-two years, beginning in 1871 and 

 ending in 1893, six years after the death of Prof. Baird 

 and eight before Mr. Boardman' s own death. 



Robert Ridgway was born at Mt. Carmel, 111., Jitlj^ 

 2, 1850. From studies in the common school he early 



