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 aud 
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 coutents or to get the address of the writer, but pro- 
ceeded from one letter to auother 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 thoughtful 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 aud built up three successive times, on the McCloud 
Biver, in California, has kept the name which I gave many years ago to the little 
post-office ou the river, and, as Baird statiou, 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 Yerein, 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, he 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 iu Germany. 
