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HISTORICAL PART 
(Chairman of the International Conference in 1895) and the 
Hon. President Ignacz Daranyi. In this question each of 
the two statesmen influenced the other, a fact which was of 
inestimable advantage to the cause of international bird- 
protection. 
The International Ornithological Congress held at Paris 
in 1900 is of particular significance in the history of the inter- 
national protection of birds because of two events. 
The first event was that the delegates of the Paris feather- 
merchants and of the millinery houses, — two branches 
which demanded and still demand the sacrifice of billions 
of poor birds (here I would only mention the 6,000.000,000 
hummingbirds recorded, the 400,000 pairs of lark-wings, as 
well as the fact that special prohibitions had to be issued to 
prevent the entire extinction of the birds of paradise), — 
appeared at the Ornithological Congress to raise their voices 
in opposition to the cause of bird- protection which threatened 
to injure their material interests. 
The second event implied progress in the cause of bird- 
protection, for the Ornithological Congress passed a resolution 
(with which the International Agricultural Congress identified 
itself) to request the respective Governments to institute 
thorough researches into the question of the feeding of birds 
to form a basis for deciding the questions of usefulness and 
noxiousness. This was an implicit confession that, up till 
1900, expert ornithologists had decided the question of useful- 
ness and noxiousness rather at random, a fact which accounted 
for the anomaly, witnessed at the Paris International Con- 
ference of 1895, that expert ornithologists who were asked 
their opinion in the matter expressed absolutely antagonistic 
views. 
A report of the results of the researches was to have 
been delivered at the Fourth International Ornithological Con- 
