393 Mr. A. Newton on Mr. J. Wolley's Researches 



birds were strangled and cast into the boat, and the two younger 

 men followed. Old Jon, however, hesitated about getting in, 

 until his foreman threatened to lay hold of him with the boat- 

 hook ; at last a rope was thrown to him, and he was pulled in 

 through the surf. It was " such Satan's weather,'' they said, 

 but once clear of the breakers they were all right, and reached 

 home in safety. Next day Vilhjalmur started with the birds 

 for Reykjavik to take them to Herr Carl F. Siemsen, at whose 

 instance this particular expedition had been undertaken ; but on 

 the way he met Hansen, to whom he sold them for eighty Rigs- 

 bank-dollars (about £*d). According to Professor Steenstrup 

 {op. cit. p. 78), the bodies are now preserved in spirit in the 

 Museum of the University of Copenhagen, but respecting the 

 ultimate fate of the skms I am not quite sure. 



Several other expeditions besides those to which I have here 

 adverted no doubt took place between the years 1830 and 1844', 

 but I cannot at present give either the dates or the results. 

 Herr Siemsen informed Mr. Wolley that twenty-one birds and 

 nine eggs had passed through his hands; but this account 

 contains other details which are certainly inaccurate. If all the 

 stories we received can be credited, the whole number would 

 reach eighty-seven. I should imagine sixty to be about the 

 real amount. Of these a large portion went to the Royal 

 Museum at Copenhagen, as is stated by the late Etatsraad 

 Reinhardt {loc. cit.) ; a good many more passed into the hands 

 of Herr Brandt, whose son informed Mr. Wolley that, in or 

 since the year 1835, his father had had nine eggs, and I suppose 

 birds to match. Two eggs were also purchased by a certain 

 Snorri Ssemonasson then living at Keblavik, but what became 

 of them I do not know. I have also learnt, on undoubted 

 authority, that the late Herr Mechlenburg has had in all eight 

 birds and three eggs*. From this naturalist, in April 1844, 

 Mr. John Hancock, by the intervention of Mr. John Sewell 

 of Newcastle, received a bird and an egg, which are now in his 

 collection, with the information that they were taken together 

 with another bird and another egg, a year or two previously, 



* Herr Pastor W. Passler has some remarks on these in the ' Journal 

 fiir Ornithologie,' 1860, p. 59. 



