293 
of the European Ornis, and its Causes. 
inis series of figures speaks for itself, but not much in favour 
of the healthy state of European ornithology. There must be 
something rotten in this “ State of Denmark.” A science which 
gathers such very different flowers from one and the same soil 
cannot twine itself a garland of them; they would be frail and 
perishable decorations, without a single evergreen leaf. 
A variation from 470 to 1030, or even to 1800 !—a fluctua¬ 
tion of double or quadruple !—such a result appears to me to 
be something more than a joke. Every unprejudiced and un¬ 
initiated person must with justice ask how this can be possible ; 
he must see in the priests of the Ornis a repetition of the Roman 
Augurs who could not look at each other without laughing at 
their gods ! It seems to me that we are standing on the brink 
of the bitterest earnest, and that wherever we wander must be 
in false paths or on bogs. It is our serious duty to seek the 
cause of the evil, in order that we may not expose ourselves in 
the pillory to an unprejudiced public opinion any longer than is 
necessary either as deliberate deceivers, or as unconscious night- 
walkers, or as delirious fever^patients. 
Let us look at our question as objectively and with as little 
partisan-spirit as possible ! The statistical criterion shows us, in 
the numbers above given, two well-marked and irreconcileable 
opposite statements:—one group of numbers varies between 470 
and 581; the other between 950 and 1030. The numbers of 
each group differ amongst themselves in nearly the same pro¬ 
portion; but the second group is nearly double the first. It 
must be evident at once even to the most unlearned that the 
opposite statements of these different groups are founded upon 
quite different data, upon quite irreconcileable principles. On 
which side is the right ? or, in case both are in error, which 
side comes nearest to the truth ? 
The majority of ornithologists is on the side of the first, or 
smaller group :—all against one ! Even the arithmetical mean 
of all the statements, 578, is on the same side ! The judgment 
of those who decide objective probabilities by numbers cannot 
be a matter of question. 
Meeting of the German Ornithologists’ Society held at Stuttgardt in I860, 
of which we shall give further particulars in the next Number.— Ed. 
