8G 
TRANSFER OF LOEW’S COLLECTION TO CAMBRIDGE 
Freundschaft Ihr herzlicli ergebener , IT. Z.” This was the last 
letter I received from Loew at that time. Several letters of mine 
remained without answer, and before starting for California I wrote, 
plaintively, but in vain (November 80, 1875): “ Please remember 
that since March last I have not received a sign of life from you,” 
etc. With this our correspondence ended, and was only renewed 
when I landed in Europe two years later. 
It was evident that Loew had become sick of the insincere game 
he was playing with me, and had suddenly thrown off the mask, 
and put an abrupt end to this useless correspondence. In the 
mean time, I had accomplished my western journey (December, 
1875-September, 1876), had written and published my “Western 
Diptera,” and was preparing to leave for Europe. A correspond¬ 
ence took place between Mr. Alexander Agassiz and me about 
the North American collection in the hands of Loew. I gave 
Mr. Agassiz (February 25, 1877) a detailed account of the strange 
position in which Loew had placed me, and of my anxiety about the 
collection. I asked him to write to Loew and to request him to 
prepare the collection for shipment next autumn. I remember 
Hagen chaffing me about it, and warning me that the collection 
would never reach Cambridge, Mass. Mr. A. Agassiz followed 
my advice, wrote to Loew, and received an answer which he sent 
me at Newport, Rhode Island, my residence at that time. 
Of this answer of Loew to Mr. Agassiz (dated Guben, April 6, 
1877), I shall give here the beginning in abstract, and the rest 
verbatim. It begins with apologies for dictating the letter, as 
he had had a stroke of paralysis during the summer of 1876, and 
had not yet quite recovered from it. The shipment of the collec¬ 
tion, for this reason, would not be possible before the autumn of 
1877. Put for accomplishing this purpose within the specified 
time, it was absolutely necessary for Osten Sacken to come to 
Guben, and to discuss different matters on which would depend 
the usefulness of the collection when it should reach the Museum 
in Cambridge, Mass. The work on the Catalogue being a part of 
the contract concluded with Prof. Louis Agassiz in 1873, Loew 
felt the necessity of explaining his tardiness. For three years he 
had been occupied in the Chamber of Deputies in Berlin, in the 
