180 BULLETIN OF VVISCONSLN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. VOL. 2. NO. 4. 
this climatological work was a lurking remnant of the supersti- 
tion of the people when they first noticed the regular movements 
of certain birds, we may look to this as the probable orio^in of 
these lines of investigation. A writer in AW the Year Round 
says : "When man began to meditate upon the movements of cer- 
tain birds, how they all disappeared at a certain time as if by 
common consent, and then rea])peared after a certain interval, 
they not unnaturally fell into the error of mistaking cause for 
effect and regarded the birds as regulating the seasons instead of 
the seasons the birds" (5). 
Zoologists, however, saw another use for these data and it 
was mainly through the influence of two naturalists in Russia 
that this climatological material was turned to zoological ends. 
Kessler in 1852 attempted to determine something of the courses 
taken in migration, but arrived only at the general directions 
followed (6). ]Mic]dendorf two years later called attention to the 
importance of working over the material collected by the cli- 
matologists, and during the same year made the first attempt to 
reduce the flight of birds to law (7). 
Most of the work on migration was now directed toward an 
attempt to determine the direction of flight. Though many of the 
first fruits of this work were of little value from the standpoint 
of fact they immediately led to those important lines of investiga- 
tion which were to form the foundation of research in migration. 
Although systematic work was now in progress, the direction 
which the course of investigation must take was not clearly under- 
stood until 1871, when Sunderal made known the routes of the 
crane in Europe. It then became evident that there were definite 
routes followed in migration and that these routes would have to 
be the first phenomenon to be dealt with. That definite routes 
were followed had already been hinted at by Linne, Schlegel, L. 
Brehm, J. F. Nauman and Baird, but it remained for Palmen to 
give definite form to this line of investigation. Brehm as ear]y 
as 1828 refers to ''Heerstrassen," and in 1846 Nauman added to 
this the idea of definite resting places — ''Erholungsorten" — sta- 
tions at which birds stopped in their long journeys to rest and 
feed (8). Middendorf in 1859. from careful investigation, 
showed almost conclusively that the migratory movement takes 
5. All the Year Round, vol. 13, p. 37C. 
6. Palmen, Ueber die Ziisstrassen der Voegel, pp. 11 and 12. 
7. Ibid. 
8. Palmen, Ueber die Zugstrassen der Voegel. Leipzig, 187G, p. 0. 
