ON THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 247 



spring, coining from S. ; the White Stork from S.E. to N.W. ; 

 the Wagtail from W. to E. ; the Woodcock from S.W. to N.E. ; 

 the Cuckoo from S.E. to N.W., &c. All positive facts which 

 it would not have been possible to establish by the old method. 



And, if you ask me what else we have determined by our 

 method, I reply : We know that the Swallow settles in the 

 areas of Europe, from Gibraltar to Lulea, in one hundred and 

 five days ; that the young Swallows are already fledged in 

 Gibraltar when the old ones for Lulea only arrive ; that the 

 settling of Hungary may last as long as seventy days ; that the 

 Swallow remains here on an average one hundred and sixty- 

 seven days. This must be sufficient. If I were to enumerate 

 all the facts brought to light by the inductive method, I should 

 be obliged to put your patience to a severe test, but the result 

 would only be to show that Hungary is the best observed and best 

 worked-out country. The whole work is still only a local one, 

 even if taken in the widest sense of the word. We Hungarians 

 only work now with three hundred thousand critically determined 

 data. This is much, and still little, if we take the areas still 

 absolutely unknown, or of which we barely possess any data. 



For the working out of the migration of the Cuckoo we have 

 hitherto collected from the whole area of distribution thirty 

 thousand positive data, but we are still without those of the 

 Iberian peninsula, the entire Balkan, and the larger part of 

 Italy. From England, on the contrary, we possess the most 

 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 Strawless, who 

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

 few intermissions, from 1739 to 1904 — a fact which does un- 

 speakable 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 the human intellect has accomplished in the interests 

 of its own enlightenment has been easy ? Not one ! The road 



