CORRESPONDENCE 163 



interest. We had from Willis the other day a box containing 350 

 eggs of the Arctic Tern, and about 50 of either Sheldrake or Black 

 Duck; and I wait your coming to determine which. 



Yours truly, 



Spencer F. Baird. 



How do you like the preceding experiment of phonographic 

 reporting* or have I tried it on you before? I found Professor 

 Henry quite ill on my return, and although better I have still to 

 attend to most of his share of correspondence so that 1 have been 

 obliged to call in services of a reporter. It is very nice in some 

 respects, as I gain a great deal of time, and sometimes work off 40 

 or 50 letters in a couple of hours. It is however not quite satis- 

 factory as you cannot tell when you are repeating words or ideas 

 unnecessarily and the chain of connection is not so clear. 



I am adding to the box for Cheney and have just put in some 

 shells for his wife. 



Washington, D. C, Jan. 7, 1871. 

 My Dear Mr. Boardman: 



Yours of the 4th came to hand yesterday, and I hasten to say 

 how happy we shall be to see you and Mrs. Boardman here. Give us 

 word by telegraph, the morning you start, in order that we may 

 be completely prepared for you. 



I am much interested in what you say about the African ani- 

 mals. Please send on directly here all you can beg, borrow or 

 steal, and we will decide in regard to their preparation. We shall 

 have all that are capable of it, suitably mounted for exhibition as 

 specimens, making skulls of any that will not suit our purpose. 

 We expect a first-rate taxidermist here in the course of the winter, 

 who probably will be able to do full justice to them. We do not 

 want anything set up in our museum looking preW?/ loell ; nothing 

 but the very best taxidermy will suit us now. 



Cannot you get for us that big Wild Boar. It might serve to 

 stare out of countenance some of our animals of a similar nature 



*This addenda in Prof. Baird's own hand to the letter of November 1, 1869, 

 refers to its having been dictated to a stenographer, or to a " reporter " as he terms it, a 

 form of letter writing that was then new. 



