96 
RELATIONS WITH LOEW AFTER MY RETURN TO EUROPE 
I presented a detailed Report to the Trustees of the Museum, which 
is incorporated (p. 14-17) in their Annual Report of 1874 to the 
State Legislature. This Report of mine (44, 1875) contains abun¬ 
dant notices on the localities, as well as on the captors and contrib¬ 
utors of Diptera to the Museum before 1873-1875, and is a useful 
contribution to the history of this collection before its amalgama¬ 
tion with the Loew and Osten Sacken collections. 
XIV MY RELATIONS WITH LOEW SINCE MY RETURN TO 
EUROPE IN 1877, UNTIL HIS DEATH IN 1879 
My Chapter XII contains a detailed account of the transfer of the 
collection of North American Diptera from Guben to Cambridge, 
Mass., and it remains for me now to conclude the story of my 
relations with Loew up to his death. 
Loew’s very singular conduct towards me between 1875 and 
1877, and the total cessation of our correspondence, did not pre¬ 
vent him from hailing my return to Europe with delight. The 
first letter I received from him in Europe (dated August 10-14, 
1877) began with the words: “My most heart-felt Salve upon your 
arrival on German soil, which I connect with the hope of having a 
long interview with you, and of the revival of our relations.” The 
tone of his letters had now a touching ring of sincerity, quite dif¬ 
ferent from what I had been accustomed to before. But they were 
painful to read on account of the evident decline of his faculties. 
They were written with visible effort, and with frequent interrup¬ 
tions. In the above-quoted letter of August, 1877, he showed a 
great anxiety about the fate of his own European collection and of 
his numerous manuscripts, and asked me to help him in the matter. 
To purchase the collection myself was out of the question; I could 
not assume the responsibilities which the possession of such a 
collection would have involved. Fortunately, the question re¬ 
ceived the best possible solution in the purchase of it by the Prus¬ 
sian Government for the Berlin Museum. 1 About his manuscripts 
1 Compare Chapter XVI, at the end, where details about the fate of Loew’s 
European collection will be found. 
