THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



had done almost, i£ not quite, the best work of any organization 

 of this kind I ever knew. There were all sorts of receptions, 

 and many delightful mementoes of Vienna were given to 

 delegates. The expense of the entertainment of the Congress 

 must have been very great. The final dinner in the Burgo- 

 meister's Saale was incomparably admirable. To one from the 

 United States, however, the most striking feature of the Con- 

 gress was the evening reception at the Palace. Such an array 

 of spectacular uniforms and decorations and women's costumes 

 and jewels I had never imagined. But I was disappointed in 

 Franz Josef. From his published photographs, I had pictured 

 him as a man of heroic proportions and military bearing — an 

 ideal emperor. When I saw the small, bent, senile person that 

 he was at that time, I began to appreciate what has come to be 

 known as the pathos of his reign. 



I recall with especial interest one incident of this Congress. 

 The Association of Bird Lovers of Austria had been allowed 

 a special session of one of the sections of the Congress, for the 

 discussion of the question of bird protection. Since it was an 

 Agricultural Congress, it was obvious that the discussion would 

 take the form of a strong advocacy of bird protection as an 

 aid to agriculture. This happened to be a subject in which I 

 had taken an especial interest. I had supported Antonio Berlese 

 in his Italian work, and from my studies of the insect parasites 

 of injurious species in the United States, I had come to the 

 conclusion that by far the most important enemies of injurious 

 insects are other insects. Considering the fact that birds feed 

 rather indifferently upon various kinds of insects, I had even 

 gone so far in my mind as to think that if the entire race of 

 insectivorous birds were wiped out by some catastrophe, the 

 balance of Nature would not be long upset. I have always 



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