BRITISH ORXlTHOIJXilSTs' UXIOX. 23 



II.— The First Series of ^ The Ibis ' (1859-1864). 



••' Ibimus indomiti venerantes Ibida sacram, 

 Ibimus incolumes qua ])rior Ibis adest." 



{Editor : P. L. Sclater.) 



1859. 



The ready assistance received by the Editor in preparing 

 the first number of ' The Ibis ' has ah'eady been described. 

 By great exertions he managed to get it ready about 

 the middle of January 1859, and soon after left for Tunis 

 and Algeria along with Edward Taylor and two other 

 friends. From this pleasant place of retreat he was quickly 

 recalled by messages from home, urging him to return at 

 once and take up the Secretaryship of the Zoological Society, 

 Avhich was then about to be vacated. Somewhat unwillingly, 

 it must be allowed, he obeyed the call, and was back in 

 London by the end of March, hard at work on the second 

 number of ' The Ibis,^ in preparing which he had again the 

 efficient assistance of his good friends Salvin, Newton, aud 

 Tristram. Wolley also contributed to this number a most 

 interesting history of the breeding of the Crane in Lapland. 

 For the third and fourth numbers of the new periodical he 

 likewise received valuable support from his friends and 

 correspondents. Thus he was enabled, at the close of 1859, 

 to finish off a handsome volume of 490 pages ornamented 

 by 15 illustrations, mostly drawn by that incomparable bird- 

 artist, Joseph Wolf, 



The General Meeting of the Members of the British 

 Ornithologists' Union in 1859 was held iu London on the 

 9th of November, but I regret to say that the Minutes of 

 this Meeting, like some of the other early papers, cannot be 

 found. The date and place of meeting are known by the 

 allusions to it in the minutes of the General Meeting of 

 1860, but no further particulars are ascertainable, except 

 that a call of £2 was made upon each i\Iember of the Union 

 towards the expenses of the Journal. 



