228 THE NATURALIST OF THE ST. CROIX 



pleasure but sixty has found me this month tied up 

 closer than ever, cheated out of $40,000 by those I 

 supposed honest men. It is ' no use to cry over spilled 

 milk' but it does not make one feel particularly amiable 

 to have his plans frustrated at my period of life by the 

 acts of another." 



Notw^ithstanding their close friendship and long corre- 

 spondence these friends never saw each other. Mr. Board- 

 man was always writing Dr. Wood to visit him at Mill- 

 town, to go to Florida with him, while the latter was 

 constantly entreating the former to stop over on some of 

 his trips from Boston to New York or from Maine to 

 Florida and see him and his museum. He is telling him 

 how to take a stage from Hartford for East Windsor Hill, 

 and then of a railroad to be built which will have a 

 station within half a mile of his house. In April, 1873, 

 they had been in New York on the same day and had 

 visited Wallace's within half an hour of each other and 

 great was the disappointment of both when they found 

 it out later. "Dr. Holder, superintendent of Central Park, 

 spent an afternoon with me last week. He asked if I 

 was acquainted with Geo. A. Boardman of Maine; I 

 replied, ' yes, intimately for about sixteen or eighteen 

 years, but never had the pleasure of seeing the gentle- 

 man.' I explained when he said : ' You remind me of 

 him every minute.' So I think it must be about time to 

 see each other face to face. I did not understand him 

 that there was any personal resemblance between us, 

 but that our enthusiasm and manner of speaking were 

 alike." 



In 1882 Dr. Wood writes: "I hope you will not go 

 out west to live until you have been here. If you get 



