562 MIGRATION 
the reduction of which to intelligible order is still taxing the 
ingenuity and patience of Mr. W. E. Clarke, who has undertaken 
the onerous duty. Similar observations have also been organized 
since 1883, at stations in Denmark, and the results published by 
Prof. Liitken and HH. Oluf and Herluf Winge; while, since 1885, 
the example has been followed both in Germany and Russia by 
Prof. Rudolf Blasius and Herr E. von Middendorff. In North 
America a very praiseworthy piece of work was performed by 
Prof. W. W. Cooke, whose Report on Bird Migration in the Missis- 
sippi Valley in 1884 and 1885, based on the records furnished by 
170 observers, of whom Mr. Otto Widman is especially to be 
named, was edited by Dr. C. Hart Merriam.! Some of the facts 
herein adduced are highly suggestive, but it must be remarked 
that on several points there is a difference of opinion between the 
author and the editor. For instance, Prof. Cooke confirms the 
statements of European observers as to the young birds of many 
species preceding their parents in the autumnal movements, while 
Dr. Merriam, trusting to some evidence which appears not yet to 
have been published, and to the testimony of Mr. W. Brewster,” 
declares to the contrary effect. As the European experience on 
this point is indisputable, and a good deal depends upon it, we 
trust that the matter will eventually be cleared up. 
But the result of all these efforts, good as they are, may be 
said to pale before the stupendous amount of information amassed 
during more than fifty years by the venerable Herr Gatke of 
Heligoland, a place which through his watchfulness has attained 
celebrity as a post of observation quite beyond any other in the 
world, so that ornithologists may at times wonder whether the man 
made the station or the station the man—-so fitted have they been 
for one another. It is to be hoped that his work? will one day 
appear in an English version, for until then its contents will 
remain unknown to most British and North-American ornithologists. 
On the author’s theories we would offer but few remarks. It is 
his conviction that of effective and successful Migration we see 
but little, as it is for the most part carried on at such a height in 
the air as to be beyond our ken, and what comes to our perception 
correspondence deserves the thanks of every ornithologist. Beside this it was he 
and Mr. Harvie-Brown who in 1879 initiated the light-house enquiry, afterwards 
adopted by the British Association, and obtained for it the countenance of the 
official authorities. 
1U, S. Department of Agriculture. Division of Economic Ornithology, 
Bulletin No. 2. Washington: 1888. 
2 Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, No.1. Cambridge, Mass.: 1886. 
5 Die Vogelwarte Helgoland. Braunschweig: 1891. A brief summary of the 
least interesting part of this volume, being hardly more than a list of the species 
that have been observed on the island, is printed in The [bis for 1892, pp. 1-32. 
