THE METHOD. 



he ever-increasing mass of data called a Wust" (chaos) 

 by A. v. MIDDENDORFF* so far back as 1855 -- concerned 

 with the migration of birds, make the question of 

 their working out one of the first importance. Yet it 

 cannot be denied that everybody has attempted to 

 avoid tackling the ,,Wust" : in fact we must admit 

 that the one aim held in view and the results even of the agi- 

 tation started by the International Ornithological Congress in 

 Vienna (1884) has always been the amassing of still more data. 

 The questions to be decided are: 



1. whether the ,,Wust" is of any value; and, if so, what use 

 can be made of the same? 



2. in what way recent data are to be treated ? 



3. whether a uniform method should be followed in working 

 out the data; and, if so, which method? 



Up to the present no-one has attempted to wrestle with these 

 cardinal questions. 



Authors have indeed launched into axioms more or less 

 ingenious, which, however, without ever surpassing those deduced 

 by the crowned ,,auceps" the EMPEROR FREDERICK n. (1194 1250) 

 as far back as the XIII-th century, often fail to reach their level. *' 



The intense work which, in the interests of the second Inter- 

 national Ornithological Congress held at Budapest in 1891, I had to 



* A. v. Middendorffs Iscpiptcsen Russlands 1855. 



* Sec my ,,Recensio critica automatica of the doctrine of bird migration l!)0f>." 



496 



