Prof. Blasius on the Ornithology of Heligoland. 03 



in company of one of the islanders, without Gaetke, I said to 

 one of my friends — " Do you believe that these people tell us 

 the truth, or are their narratives mere fables V He answered, 

 " How come you to have such an idea ? If these are fables, 

 then the whole island is but a fiction, and we are not here in 

 the middle of the sea, but rather on the heath of Lunenburg/' 

 Yet there are people who consider the whole thing a fiction, 

 and a barefaced attempt at imposition. But if the diary, wherein 

 the time, the place, the measurement, the voice and the habits 

 of the bird are registered, together with the name of the indivi- 

 dual from whom each specimen has been obtained — if the con- 

 cordance of the diary with the collection, the concurrence of the 

 narratives of the islanders themselves with the assertions of 

 Gaetke and his collection — if the detailed accounts (confirmed by 

 subsequent testimony) of the chase of each separate and rare 

 bird, and the collection itself, which shows that it could have 

 been formed only from fresh-killed birds, and these set up by 

 an artistic hand — if all this be mere trickery, then there must 

 indeed have been a complete school of trickery, in which the 

 greater part of the inhabitants must have conspired for the 

 benefit of a single man, who is almost a stranger to them, and 

 whom they do not as yet consider as one of themselves. Such 

 an idea seems to me quite an absurdity. In short, in Heli- 

 goland, where everybody is known, and where nothing can be 

 concealed, there is but one verdict upon the matter, and this 

 excludes every idea of dishonesty. 



Moreover, I may ask, whence could many of these birds, killed 

 at Heligoland and still existing there, have been imported ? I 

 will quote only the 



Motacilla certhiola. Pall., 



Motacilla salicaria, Pall, (or Sylvia caligata, Licht.), 



Regulus modestus, Gould, 



Motacilla citreola, Pall., 



Turdus varius, Pall., 



Pyrrhula rosea, Pall., 



Larus roseus, Jard. & Selby, 



Larus sabinii, Leach. 

 As for others, such as Emberiza pusilla, Pall., Gaetke possessed 



