of the European Ornis, and its Causes. 293 



This series of figures speaks for itself, but not much in favour 

 of the healthy state of European ornithology. There must be 

 something rotten in this " State of Denmark." A science which 

 gathers such very different flowers from one and the same soil 

 cannot twine itself a garland of them ; they would be frail and 

 perishable decorations, without a single evergreen leaf. 



A variation from 470 to 1030, or even to 1800 ! — a fluctua- 

 tion of double or quadruple ! — such a result appears to me to 

 be something more than a joke. Every unprejudiced and un- 

 initiated person must with justice ask how this can be possible ; 

 he must see in the priests of the Ornis a repetition of the Roman 

 Augurs who could not look at each other without laughing at 

 their gods ! It seems to me that we are standing on the brink 

 of the bitterest earnest, and that wherever we wander must be 

 in false paths or on bogs. It is our serious duty to seek the 

 cause of the evil, in order that we may not expose ourselves in 

 the pilloiy to an unprejudiced public opinion any longer than is 

 necessary either as deliberate deceivers, or as unconscious night- 

 walkers, or as delirious fever-patients. 



Let us look at our question as objectively and with as little 

 partisan-spirit as possible ! The statistical criterion shows us, in 

 the numbers above given, two well-marked and irreconcileable 

 opposite statements : — one group of numbers varies between 470 

 and 581 ; the other between 950 and 1030. The numbers of 

 each group differ amongst themselves in nearly the same pro- 

 portion; but the second group is nearly double the first. It 

 must be evident at once even to the most unlearned that the 

 opposite statements of these different groups are founded upon 

 quite different data, upon quite irreconcileable principles. On 

 which side is the right ? or, in case both are in error, which 

 side comes nearest to the truth ? 



The majority of ornithologists is on the side of the first, or 

 smaller group : — all against one ! Even the arithmetical mean 

 of all the statements, 578, is on the same side ! The judgment 

 of those who decide objective probabilities by numbers cannot 

 be a matter of question. 



Meeting of the German Ornithologists' Society held at Stuttgardt in 1860, 

 of which we shall give further particulars in the next Number. — Ed. 



