174 Otto Herman : 



marvellous series concerning the appearance of this bird. It 

 was placed at our disposal by Mr. Thomas Southwell of Norwich, 

 and comes from the Marsham family in Stratton-Stawless, 

 who have kept a faithful record of the arrival of the Cuckoo, 

 with a few intermissions, from 1739 to 1904 — a fact which 

 does unspeakable credit to the many generations who have 

 continued the work. 



When, however, all regions are as well explored and as 

 well known as possible — at least as well as Hungary is— and 

 not till then, will the true nature of the phenomenon of 

 migration be revealed to us. 



But, people will say : it is an enormous, a Herculean task 

 to make millions of observations and to work them out 

 methodically. That is true enough ! 



But, I ask : which of the tasks human intellect has accom- 

 plished in the interests of its own enlightenment has been 

 easy ? Not one ! 



It is our evident duty to carry out the work of ornitho- 

 phaenological observation : in this task I count, in the first 

 place, on the Ornithologists of England, the heirs of Derham, 

 a man who, as far back as two centuries ago, busied himself 

 with the science of observation. 



What is required of us is to throw into the balance a sense 

 of duty, courage, and unbending resolution. 



Before closing, however, I must take into account the 

 realistic tendency of the time. We often hear the question 

 asked : what can a knowledge of the migration of birds profit 

 us ? The profit is a twofold one. 



1. The solution of the problem is in the interest of 



science, of intellectual progress, and therefore of 

 the highest advantage to mankind. 



2. It will only be by a solution of this problem that we 



will be able to get a correct notion of the great part 



that birds play in the household of Nature. 



The millions of birds which, season after season, wander 



from one zone to the other, represent an enormous aggregate 



of labour ; and this not only by their flight itself, but by their 



search for food. 



This labour and the search for food act in the organic life 



