X\i MEMOIR. 



attention ; and, though his note-books shew his attendance on 

 lectures, and lie kept the terms necessaiy for a call to the bar, the 

 Zoological Gardens and the Reading-room of the British Museum 

 TFcre more frequently his haunt than the chambers of the special 

 pleader, and subsequently he abandoned the design of following a 

 barrister's profession. Profiting by his opportunities he began to 

 examine and collate for himself the historical evidence relating to 

 the Dodo, and this research naturally led him to study the records 

 of old voyagers'^. Herein he fortunately discovered what still 

 remains the latest evidence of an eye-witness to the existence of that 

 bird, in the manuscript ' Coppey of Mr. Benj. Harry's Journall,' 

 referring to July 1681 t- All this was done without any suspicion 

 of the late Mr. Hugh Edwin Strickland being similarly employed, 

 for it was not until towards the close of the next year that Wolley 

 became aware of that gentleman's design of immediately bringing 

 out a work on the subject. By that time, following, as Strickland 

 himself had done, the lines first traced by Broderip (Penny Cyclo- 

 pjedia, ix. pp. 4<7--55), Wolley had collected a large body of notes; 

 but directly he saw an announcement of the intended publication of 



* The Dodo and its Kindred' he at once (6th December, 1847) wrote 

 to Yarrcll, as their common friend, offering the results at which he 



* A number of book-ticlcets, filled up by liiin in the library of the British 

 Museum, and kept for further use, are in my hands, and one of them, dated the 

 12th of November, 1840, for the ' Voyage et Avantures' of Leguat, the neTer-to- 

 be-for'>otteu describer of the "Solitaire" of Rodriguez, is a hint sufficient for the 

 purpose. 



t British Museum, Add. MSS. 3668, 11, D. To the last, Wolley was strongly 

 of opinion that, assiduously as Strickland had worked, extended research w^ould 

 brino* to lifht a good deal more information on the subject. Whether such research 

 has been expressly made I cannot say ; but, as a matter of fact, accessions of the 

 kind he expected have not been very numerous. Chief among them perhaps are 

 the letters of Altham in 1628 (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1874, pp. 447-449) and the anony- 

 mous ' Relation de I'lle Rodrigue,' discovered by Mr. Rouillard (op. cit. 1875, 

 pp. o9-42), beside a few more contemporary paintings, one, ascribed to Hoefnagel, 

 in the library of the Emperor of Austria being of especial interest (Von Frauenfeld, 



* Neue aufgefundene Abbildung des Droute,' u. s. w. Wien : 1868). On the other 

 hand the exertions of Mr. George Clark and Mr. Sauzier have put us in possession 

 of almost every bone of the Dodo's skeleton (Trans. Zool. Soc, vi. pp. 49-85; vii. 

 pp. 513-525 ; xiii. pp. 296-298), and the investigations originated by my brother 

 Edward have done the same for the allied bird of Rodriguez (Phil. Trans. 1869, 

 pp. 327-302, and clxviii. pp. 438-451). 



