Memoir of the late Junii Wolley. 181 



light the naturalists of this generation hailed the tidings, that 

 the mystery with which the nidification of the Waxwing had 

 hitherto been enshrouded was dispelled. At Wolley's especial 

 request, the intelligence was communicated to but a few of his 

 most intimate friends at home, one of whom (the late Mr. Yar- 

 rell), it was his wish, should make public the news. Before, 

 however, the letters announcing the great event reached Eng- 

 land, that excellent gentleman had been laid in his grave, and 

 the discovery was accordingly first announced in a short paper 

 communicated by AVolley himself to the Zoological Society 

 of London, and read at the meeting held March 2Gth, 1857. 

 Soon after, the public had an opportunity of testifying their ap- 

 preciation of this new acquisition to oology, and the result was, 

 that a higher price was obtained for each of the three eggs of 

 the Waxwing — offered for sale at Mr. Stevens's rooms — than had 

 ever been known before, except in the case of those of a species 

 presumed to be extinct. The full particulars of the discovery 

 have yet to be given to the world. 



The winter of 1856-7 passed with Wolley much as usual, 

 though, in his letters to his most constant correspondents, he 

 complained of being less able than formerly to withstand the 

 rigours of the climate. In the spring he again set out for Nor- 

 way ; but this time he chose another route, proceeding through 

 the almost unexplored country nearly due north of Muonioniska, 

 until he struck upon the head-waters of the Tana, and, descend- 

 ing that river, reached the Waranger district, which had been 

 partially examined by him and his friends in 1855. He was 

 attracted thither by the report that, some years previously, a 

 Swedish naturalist had there met with a breeding-place of the 

 Knot ; but the locality assigned was found on examination to 

 be a mountain covered with perpetual snow, and Wolley met 

 with but little to compensate him for his loss of time and labour. 

 When, towards the end of the season, he again returned to 

 INIuoniovara, he found a large number of eggs collected for him, 

 and, before he left for England, he had the additional gratifica- 

 tion of receiving, from a remote district in Finland, some eggs 

 of the Smew, the first known to have been obtained by any 

 naturalist. An account of this, the last great oological discovery 



