REPORT OX THE MIORATIOX OF 1;1RD8.* 



By Prof. Dr. J. A. PALMEN.t 



/{(■Is'nif/fors, Finland. 

 [Translated from the (ierman l>y ('. W. Shoemaker.] 



The annual nii<>Tation of birds has at all times attracted the atten- 

 tion of thinking' men but in very different ways. Thus this ](henonieuon 

 awakes in the simple peasant other thoug'hts than in the man of cul- 

 ture: the poet and the naturalist look upon the returning flocks with 

 other feelings than the hunter. Xatural philosophers hnally take up 

 the migration as a very complicated problem for investigation. They 

 regai'd it however from different points of \iew. and accordingly the 

 (juestion is treated in dissimilar ways. 



Linnc admonished natural philosoi»hers to observe the migration 

 of birds. But this colleeting of data could not be done methodically 

 before the necessity for simidtaueons oliservations over greater areas 

 ha<l nnide itself felt by the examination of geophysical questions, 

 ami in this direction a program was practically carried out. Quetelet 

 then in the year 1S41 asked that the changes in living nature also be 

 noted in a compreliensive and regular manner, and his countryman de 

 Selj's-Longc'hamps proposed to collect exact data specially on the mi- 

 gration of birds. This repeated warning was now obeyed with zeal. 



".Submitted to the ^Second luternatioual nrnitholoiiieal Cougres.s in Budapest, 

 1891. 



t Wtieii ill tlie tall of 18!!0, tlie Hnii,i>'ariau commit'tee for the Sec(md Internatioual 

 <')rnithol()gical Congress in liuda-Pesth eharged me with the duty of preparing the 

 report on the state of onr knowledge regarding the migriition of birds, a far (leep<'r 

 obligation was at the same time officially laid upon me. the fnltiihiicnt of wiiieh 

 re<|nired great exertions. IJut the prospeet of being able to say a word on sneh an 

 oeeasion about the snl)Jeet which had beeonie dear to me was too enticing; and in 

 the hope that I might be able to discharge my otiicial duties by New Year. I ])roinised 

 to ])laoe my small abilities at tlie dis])osal of the committee. 



I'ntbrtiinately I was mistaken, and those duties are not yet perlbrmed. T did not 

 perceive the full scope oi' the work until alter it was too Lite to turn it over to 

 another specialist. And so nothing remained but to ]ieribrm in the shortest ]>ossibhi 

 time an almost impossible task. No one can be more conscious of the defects of the 

 present report than the person making it. "When he ventures, however, to appear 

 with it before the Sec(md International ( )rnithological Congress, he does it in the hojie 

 that in ])assing judgment upon it the above circumstances may be duly considered. 



The writer liopes to l>e able to treat the subject niorc^ exhaustively on another 

 occasion, and thus to remedy in a measure the delects of the present treatise. 



HELSi^'Gious, May 0, 1S91. 



375 



