  We analyze different volume-limited samples extracted from the Southern Sky
Redshift Survey (SSRS2), using counts-in-cells to compute the Count Probability
Distribution Function (CPDF).From the CPDF we derive volume-averaged
correlation functions to fourth order and the normalized skewness and kurtosis
$S_3 = \bar{\xi_3}/\bar{\xi_2}^2$ and $S_4=\bar{\xi_4}/\bar{\xi_2}^3$. We find
that the data satisfies the hierarchical relations in the range $0.3 \lsim
\bar{\xi_2} \lsim 10$. In this range, we find $S_3$ to be scale-independent
with a value of $\sim 1.8$, in good agreement with the values measured from
other optical redshift surveys probing different volumes, but significantly
smaller than that inferred from the APM angular catalog. In addition, the
measured values of $S_3$ do not show a significant dependence on the luminosity
of the galaxies considered. This result is supported by several tests of
systematic errors that could affect our measures and estimates of the cosmic
variance determined from mock catalogs extracted from N-body simulations. This
result is in marked contrast to what would be expected from the strong
dependence of the two-point correlation function on luminosity in the framework
of a linear biasing model. We discuss the implications of our results and
compare them to some recent models of the galaxy distribution which address the
problem of bias.
