XVIII. 



Iona, 20 th February 1853. 



I keg-ret to think that the correspondence that we have so 

 agreeably kept up for the last year and upwards must soon 

 meet with a check. I propose leaving Iona for London, and 

 have a very great inclination to go out to Canada for a visit, or 

 perhaps for a permanent residence. I have already visited 

 Lower Canada and been along the coast as far north as Labrador, 

 and still further in a southern direction. In fact, I can say that 

 I have killed White Egrets in the West Indian Islands, Pelicans 

 at Port Eoyal, and Boobies at the Bahamas ; but at that time, 

 alas ! I let pass glorious opportunities of ornithologising. On this 

 occasion the case will be very different, for I look forward with 

 delightful anticipations to the prospect of killing, to me, new 

 races of birds, or the still greater pleasure of occasionally hailing 

 an old friend — such, for instance, as the Great Northern Diver, 

 which seems to be identical on both sides of the Atlantic. 

 Certainly, in future, wherever the locality in which I am cast, 

 there shall I carry with me a love for Natural History, which 

 will always furnish me with a most agreeable recreation, a solace, 

 a retirement, a refuge always open to fly to from the accidents or 

 annoyances of life. 



At the present day Ornithology takes its place as a respectable 

 science, and especially as a popular and pleasing one. Blackwood 

 remarks : — " We remember the time when the very word 

 Ornithology would have required interpretation in mixed com- 



