His Royal Highness the Crown-Prince of Monaco presided.

It is not necessary, now, to repeat the details of that preliminary
meeting. It is sufficient to say that committees representing the
various known sciences were named and appointed by the Prince of
Monaco, who had been unanimously elected permanent chairman of the
conference. It is the composition of a single committee that concerns
us now, and that committee, representing the science which treats of
bird life, was made up as follows:

Chairman--His Royal Highness the Crown-Prince of Monaco. Members--Sir
Peter Grebe, Great Britain; Baron de Becasse, France; his Royal
Highness King Christian, of Finland; the Countess d'Alzette, of
Belgium; and I, from the United States, representing the Smithsonian
Institution and the Bronx Park Zoological Society of New York.

This, then, was the composition of that now notorious ornithological
committee, a modest, earnest, self-effacing little band of workers,
bound together--in the beginning--by those ties of mutual respect and
esteem which unite all laborers in the vineyard of science.

From the first meeting of our committee, science, the great leveller,
left no artificial barriers of rank or title standing between us. We
were enthusiasts in our love for ornithology; we found new inspiration
in the democracy of our common interests.

As for me, I chatted with my fellows, feeling no restraint myself and
perceiving none. The King of Finland and I discussed his latest
monograph on the speckled titmouse, and I was glad to agree with the
King in all his theories concerning the nesting habits of that
important bird.