4<; REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1901. 



[n his quiet home life Lacoe was gentle, dignified, and somewhat 

 diffident. He was thoughtful, often serious, yet sympathetic and 

 keenly appreciative of the bumorous. He was pure and upright in 

 all his life. He was esteemed by the entire community and beloved 

 l>\ all who were so fortunate as to enjoy his acquaintance. 



Though having but a common-school education in his youth, he 

 later made himself well read, particularly in the general sciences. In 

 the literature relating to fossil plants and insects his library has few 

 equals in America. His knowledge of paleozoic plants was expert; 

 yet he was so modest and so lacking the ambition of authorship that 

 he preferred to have the materials of his collections described by 

 others. His own writings are confined to several pamphlets, chiefly 

 of the nature of catalogues. 



During the later years of Lacoe's life the purpose to aid in the 

 increase of knowledge by promoting the study of fossil plants and 

 insects became more (dearly defined, and found expression in more 

 systematically and wisely directed efforts. In the field of fossil plants 

 he sought to gain material from the paleobotanically less known for- 

 mations whose fossils should throw greatest light on floras already 

 known. In the insect world, instead of collecting fossils at random, 

 and thus continuing the speculations as to the affinities of the older 

 forms, lie had engaged in methodically and extensively collecting 

 insect remains from the later geological formations in order that they 

 might be studied in connection with their survivors among living 

 insects, his idea being that the insects of each successively earlier 

 period should be mutually studied and interpreted in the light of the 

 ascertained characters and relations of the later times, the result of 

 Mich studies being a more satisfactory elaboration of a genetic and 

 natural classification of both fossil and living types. Arrangements 

 were being made by Lacoe for carrying out these broad and philosoph- 

 ical plans when a brief but fatal ilbiess cut short his great work. 

 The Lacoe collections in the National Museum form a most appropri- 

 ate and lasting monument to the memory of this noble and patriotic 

 patron of the sciences for which they stand. 



Mr. George A. Boardman, for many years a correspondent of the 

 Smithsonian Institution and an intimate friend of Professor Baird, 

 died January 11. L901, at his home in Calais, Maine, aged S3 years. 

 Mi'. Boardman was horn in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on February 

 5, L818, his ancestors having come to that locality on May to, 1037, 

 from Yorkshire, England. Removing to Calais, he became extensively 

 engaged in the lumber business, from which he retired with a compe- 

 tence in isTl. the subsequent years of his life being largely devoted to 

 travel and to the more active pursuit of his favorite study, ornithology. 

 From IsTl to about L88T, lie spent the winters in Florida, going and 

 returning by way of Washington, and usually stopping, sometimes for 



