1. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California

Abstract

SCHMIDT¹ has objected to an argument given in my 1968 Bakerian Lecture². Fig. 2 of Kellermann's recent Warner Prize Lecture³ shows combined differential source counts at 75, 20, 11 and 6 cm. The points show a Euclidean distribution for values of the integral count between 10 and 10³ sources sr^-1. Above 10³ sources sr^-1 the counts deviate from a Euclidean distribution in the way that is expected for cosmologically distant objects, but for less than 10 sources sr^-1 the counts deviate from Euclidean in a reversed sense. This so-called "steep" part of the distribution therefore involves only 100 sources over the whole sky. The point from my Bakerian Lecture, now under criticism, was that the latter deviation can be regarded as a local fluctuation in which 5 nearby sources sr^-1 are considered to be missing at the high flux end of the source distribution. The data from four surveys, given in the reference cited above, strongly support this position.