Memoir of the late John Wolley. 173 



his residence at Trinity College. For one who had just quitted 

 the sixth form at Eton and did not intend to take a degree in 

 honours, not much reading was necessary, and with Wolley^s 

 tastes, it is not surprising to find that most of his time while at 

 the University was passed in the Cambridgeshire and Hunting- 

 donshire fens and woods, which then afforded a rich field for 

 the researches of a naturalist. In the long-vacation of 1845 he 

 started on a trip to the south of Spain, and after visiting Cadiz, 

 Seville, and Gibraltar, crossed the Straits to Tangier. Here he 

 unexpectedly found a keen egg-collector domiciled, at that 

 time known to but few naturalists in Europe, and perhaps to 

 none in England. Though at first only the cabinets of Wolley 

 himself and his immediate friends were benefited by the dis- 

 covery, the knowledge of Mons. Favier's readiness to oblige 

 other oologists soon spread, and to their general advantage. It 

 is true that the eggs thus rendered attainable to British col- 

 lectors were such as at present are no longer accounted scarce ; 

 but the progress of the study is marked by the fact that at that 

 time an experienced ornithologist like the late Mr. Yarrell con- 

 sidered such eggs as the Pratincole^s and Stilt's, brought home 

 by Wolley, as " the rarest he had ever had.'' Mr. Hewitson, 

 too, was thereby shortly afterwards enabled to give, for the first 

 time, a correct figure of the egg of the Egyptian Vulture in the 

 edition of his well-known work then approaching completion. 



In January 1846, Wolley graduated as a B.A. and left the 

 University. He then went to live in London, and entered at the 

 Middle Temple with the intention of studying law. But more 

 congenial pursuits chiefly occupied his attention, and though he 

 kept the terms necessary for a call to the bar, the reading-room 

 of the British Museum was more frequently his haunt than the 

 chambers of the special pleader, and the design of following a 

 barrister's profession was subsequently abandoned. Profiting 

 by the opportunities he enjoyed, he at this time mostly busied 

 himself with studying the works of the older naturalists. The 

 writer has been unable to ascertain precisely at what period the 

 idea first occurred to Wolley's mind, but it was certainly not 

 later than this year (1846) that he began carefully to examine 

 and collate all the historical evidence relating to that extra- 



