33 
HISTORICAL PART 
Meeting of German Farmers and Foresters. 
The first movement was made by the German farmers 
and foresters. The excessive increase of the injury done by 
insects, the sensible decrease and the disappearance of birds 
compelled them to raise their voices. It was they who, in 
1868.1868, after their XXVI*'^ General Assembly, appealed to the 
Austrian and Hungarian Foreign Minister and begged him to use 
his influence to persuade both the Hungarian and the Austrian 
governments to join the other States in concluding an inter- 
national agreement (Convention) for the protection of animals 
of value to agriculture and forestry. 
Both the Hungarian and Austrian Ministry, when asked, 
agreed to support the request of the German farmers if 
the movement was restricted to the protection of birds useful 
to agriculture. 
This suggestion began the movement for the international 
protection of birds, which, after many vicissitudes, after 
repeated revivals and decadence, has at last led to an inter- 
national agreement (Convention). 
But, before pursuing the historical thread of events that 
can be traced back to 1868, we must, on the principle, so 
incumbent on all historians, of „suum cuique", admit that 
the idea of rational bird-protection also found its birth in 
Germany. This fact is not surprising when we consider that 
the Germans have, from time immemorial, been fowlers, 
this passion of theirs being thrown into relief by so powerful 
a Monarch as the Emperor Frederick II, the „ crowned 
fowler ' (1194—1250), in his work entitled „De arte venandi 
cum avibus" which contains many remarkable and still valid 
theses. 
This national, traditional inheritance includes the bird- 
1777. protecting decree of Lippe-Detmold in 1777, that of Saxe- 
