  We present the first experimental study of the ratio of cumulant to factorial
moments of the charged-particle multiplicity distribution in high-energy
particle interactions, using hadronic Z$^0$ decays collected by the SLD
experiment at SLAC. We find that this ratio, as a function of the moment-rank
$q$, decreases sharply to a negative minimum at $q=5$, which is followed by
quasi-oscillations. These features are insensitive to experimental systematic
effects and are in qualitative agreement with expectations from
next-to-next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD.
