94 THE NATURALIST OF THE ST. CROIX 



the time was spent in scientific study but thej^ were 

 very pleasant years. He wrote less letters to friends 

 than in the active years their number had grown 

 smaller but wrote much for the local newspapers and 

 spent a great deal of time in reading. The following 

 appeared in Forest and Stream on March 4, 1899 : 



Mr. Charles Hallock calls our attention to an interesting 

 personal item in the Calais (Maine) Times, recording that " George 

 A. Boardmau, Esq., celebrated his eighty-first birthday at his 

 home on Lafayette street, Sunday, February 5. Callers tendered 

 their most hearty congratulations and all expressed the wish that 

 they might call upon him next year and find him enjoying good 

 health and his usual cheerfulness." That which gives point to the 

 paragraph is the fact, noted by Mr. Hallock, that Mr. Boardman 

 was the second name on the list of subscribers among the patrons 

 of Forest and Stream when it was begun in August, 1873. The 

 first subscriber was Gov. Horatio Sej-mour ; and Mr. Boardman 

 therefore enjoys the unique distinction of being the nestor of 

 Forest and Stream readers and he may defend his claim to the 

 record even against those correspondents who occasionally aver 

 (either through lapse of memory or by fisherman's license) that 

 they have been reading the paper for thirty or forty years. Mr, 

 Boardman has been a frequent conti'ibutor to our columns and we 

 print today some notes from his pen on the queer way of bears. 



A letter of about this date written by Mr. Boardman 

 to Mr. Charles Hallock, founder and first editor of Forest 

 and Stream, is one of interest: 



Calais, Maine, Feb. 12, 1899. 

 My Dear Mr. Hallock : 



Your kind letter just received. Very glad you and Mrs. Hallock 

 are so well and enjoying yourselves at the south. I often see your 

 name in the Forest and Stream as I have read about every paper 

 since you started it. AVhen you wrote me about starting it, I told 

 you to put me down as the fii'st subscriber, and I believe you said I 



