342 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



Professor Baird was gifted with still another unusual mental endowment, which 

 reminds one strongly of one of the traits of the first Napoleon. With that compre- 

 hensiveness of mind which takes in the broad- features and large, general outlines of 

 a great enterprise, he combined, as Napoleon did, a capacity for close and thorough 

 attention to all the details of a subject, down to the minutest items necessary to 

 success. This combination, as we all know, is a rare one. As an illustration of his 

 wonderfully retentive memory and easy grasp of details, as well as his remarkable gift 

 for a rapid dispatch of practical work, I may mention a little incident that occurred at 

 Calais, Me., where I visited him in 1872, and which has fastened itself on my mind 

 ever since. He had received twenty- seven letters by the mail of the day before I 

 remember the exact number that he told me he had received and the next forenoon, 

 after breakfast, he called in his stenographer for the purpose of answering them. As 

 I, very naturally, rose to leave the room, he kindly invited me to remain and be seated? 

 and I shall never forget the impression which the subsequent answering of those 

 letters left on me. Assuming his customary attitude, when on his feet, of holding his 

 hands behind him, one wrist grasped by the other hand, he leisurely walked up and 

 down the room, dictating to the stenographer the answers, one after another, to all 

 his letters. He did not, to my knowledge, once refer to one of the letters he had 

 received, either to ascertain its contents or to get the address of the writer, but pro- 

 ceeded from one letter to another until all were finished. And, further, during this 

 time he never showed the slightest hesitation, nor did his countenance betray any 

 signs of mental effort or confusion. It was a remarkable feat of memory and of the 

 methodical dispatch of business details which I can not forbear to mention. 



In our subsequent acquaintance and correspondence, which was very extended, 

 both personal and official, his letters were always marked by great kindness of heart 

 and thbughtful consideration, which, it is needless to say, warmly endeared him 

 to the writer. It is a great pleasure to me now to think that the United States Fish 

 Commission station that I located and built up three successive times, on the McCloud 

 River, in California, has kept the name which I gave many years ago to the little 

 post-office on the river, and, as Baird station, contributes its mite to perpetuating the 

 name of the great first United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. 



I said that there were two figures which early associations with fish-culture called 

 up very forcibly to my mind. There is also a third. It is of a man who never has 

 been in America, yet whose love for America, whose admiration for American fish- 

 culture, and whose influence on fish cultural work in America have been very marked. 

 I mean the Count von Behr. With a thorough love of fish -culture and devoted to it, 

 with an unusually enthusiastic nature which specially fitted him for inspiring others 

 with his own love for it, Herr von Behr was to Germany in this field of labor what 

 Professor Baird was to America. He was for many years the president of the 

 Deutsche Fischerei Verein, the national fish-cultural organization of Germany, and 

 during his whole connection with it he was the life of the association. He was also 

 the animating spirit of the great International Fisheries Exposition in Berlin, which 

 will forever remain memorable in the annals of the world's fish-cultural history. 

 Though of a wholly different type from Professor Baird, ke nevertheless possessed 

 qualities which caused his influence to overshadow all other fish-culturists in his own 

 country, as Professor Baird's did in this country, and made him facile princeps in 

 conducting the cause of fish-cultural development in Germany. 



