Xviii MEMOIR. 



to classification, while its active pursuit possessed the supreme fasci- 

 nation of a field-sport in its hopes and fears, its joys and disappoint-^ 

 ments, coupled with the fact that the birds'-nester continually has 

 Nature before him, and often in her wildest and most beautiful 

 aspects, while his success depends largely on his knowledge of the 

 habits of the creatures whose homes he is seeking, so that " hardly 

 any branch of the practical study of Natural History brings the 

 enquirer so closely in contact with many of its secrets." Then there 

 was the consideration of the culpable carelessness as to verification 

 of specimens displayed by so many of the owners of even large 

 collections, and the futile arguments by which they strove to per- 

 suade themselves that this or that e^^, bought of a dealer who had 

 a plausible story to tell, was indeed the treasure it was asserted to 

 be. Wolley determined that his collection, already well begun by 

 himself and his brothers, should bear a very different character, and 

 to gain that end no labour was too severe, no personal hardship too 

 great for him to undergo. 



Accordingly the summer of 1848 found him visiting the northern 

 extremity of our island, and he extended his excursion to Orkney 

 and Shetland ■^. This was more with the intention of gaining a 

 general knowledge of localities to be made use of on a future occa- 

 sion than with much expectation of then adding to his collection, for 

 the egging-season was already far advanced f. The chief oruitho- 



* He tliere had the good luck to see a Crane which had strayed thither 

 (Zoologist, p. 2352), little suspecting the closer acquaintance he was to make with 

 that species in one of its homes a few years later, 



t The Milners had visited Sutherland for collecting-purposes the preceding year, 

 heing probably the first zoologists to traverse that wild district since the expedition 

 of Jardine and Selby in 1834, and the elder brother (afterwards Sir William) had 

 recorded their observations early in 1848 (Zoologist, pp. 2014-2017), while the 

 younger, Henry, Wolley's former schoolfellow, had, both orally and by letter, 

 supplied him with further information. In that way Wolley became acquainted 

 Avith the Dunbars (§§ 25, CO, 81, 83-85)— William, the oldest, at that time an 

 exciseman with an extensive knowledge of the country and people, and Lewis, the 

 youngest, then living at Inverness. Mr. Charles St. John's ' Tour in Sutherlandshiie ' 

 in company with Mr. William Dunbar was made in 1848, just before Wolley's 

 visit, but the results were not published till the following year. The adventurous 

 Mr. Roualeyn Gordon-Cumming was about the same time occupied in much the 

 same way. What became of his spoils I do not know, and of his doings I have 

 only heard the story that having one night swum out to an Osprey's nest, he got 



