22 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE 



new Journal, ]\lessrs. Triibner & Co., of Paternoster Row, 

 with whom I was well acquainted, agreed to publish it, 

 and Messrs. Taylor ^^ Francis to print it. From the head 

 of the latter firm, the late Dr. William Francis — a very- 

 capable and well-informed person, — I received the excellent 

 suggestion to call our new bantling 'The Ibis/ after the 

 sacred bird of Egypt. I at once adopted the idea, with 

 which Newton also was highly pleased, and we set Joseph 

 Wolf (then in the zenith of his fame) to work to draw the 

 ■well-known wood-block which appeared in the first number 

 of ' The Ibis ' and has ever since ornamented its cover. 



At the close of 1858 I was rather pressed for time, as I 

 had agreed to accompany my friend Edward Cavendish 

 Taylor on an excursion to Tunis and Eastern Algeria in 

 search of birds and eggs. Fortunately, before I had 

 absolutely committed myself to the task of Editorship, I 

 had secured the promises of several of my best friends to 

 contribute articles to the first number. Oshert Salvin had 

 agreed to join me in an article on the Ornithology of 

 Central America, with which he had made himself well 

 acquainted by several visits. Canon Tristram had promised 

 me notes on the Birds of Palestine, which he had made 

 during a recent excursion, and Taylor had agreed to Avork 

 up his ornithological reminiscences of Egypt. Newton and 

 his brother Edward offered to the new Journal their 

 observations on the Birds of St. Croix, West Indies, which 

 they had made in 1857, Avhile Wolley promised me inform- 

 ation about the breeding of the Smew in Lapland. More- 

 over Hewitson, who was an excellent artist, had agreed to 

 write an article on recent discoveries in European Oology, 

 and undertook to illustrate it by a plate of eggs drawn 

 by his own hand. Thus I was very well supported by my 

 friends, and encountered the somewhat severe task of 

 commencing a new periodical Avith a certain amount of 

 confidence — the more so, perhaps, as at that time I had no 

 idea that I should shortly be asked to undertake the 

 management of the affairs of the Zoological Society of 

 London. 



