X JIE.MOIR, 



garden of their liome at Beeston, near Nottingham. One of John's 

 notes, made more than twenty years after, shews that in or about 

 1835 he bought eggs of Mr. Arthur Strickland,, who had a "Museum'^ 

 at Bridlington, where the Wolleys were staying on a visit, and about 

 the same time George found there a new locality for the rather 

 interesting beetle, Nebria livida (Zoologist, 1847, p. 1674). At Eton, 

 John was, in his own words, "always about the country in all 

 directions in pursuit of Natural History/' and he assiduously 

 collected insects and birds' eggs, while he '' knew every plant that 

 grew alout.^' Another of his notes records a Partridge's nest, found 

 and shewn to him by a schoolfellow, Sir George Hampson (b. 1823, 

 d. 1898), in 1837, the year after he went to Eton. But with all this 

 lie became one of the foremost in every manly sport, and his recol- 

 lections of having been captain of a "long boat^' and in "the eight," 

 while also one of the " oppidan eleven" and that of " the school " at 

 football — to say nothing of being a member of the Eton Society — 

 ^ere always among those in which he most delighted. 



Many years ago I was favoured by my friend the late Mr. George 

 Dawson Eowley, a contemporary of Wolley's at Eton, with some 

 notes concerning him, from which I extract the folloAving: — 



" I arrived at Eton with perhaps more than the usual taste for 

 birds'-nesting and country pursuits. My attention was therefore at 

 once arrested ^^hen I was told that a boy at such a house* kept 

 snakes in the drawers of his bureau ! This was John Wolley, whcfc 

 acquaintanceship for that reason I determined to make, and a com- 

 munity of sentiment at once bound us in the closest friendship. We 

 very soon agreed to investigate the country round Eton, and took 

 many long tramps accordingly. Watching the Herons on their 

 breeding-trees was one of onr chief delights. Of course the spoils 

 were not very great, but a small share of success was at that time 

 sufficient reward for a large amount of trouble. We very quickly 

 knew every place attainable by boys' legs. Such being the state of 

 things, it was not a matter of surprise, when my friend was made 

 captain of the ' third upper,' that he should ask me to joiir her crew, 



* Wolley was first in " the bouse '' of Mr. Wilder, but on that gentleman being 

 elected a Fellow of Eton College, and so vacating hia mastership, was transferred 

 in 1840 to that of Mr, Evans, Mr, Piclierirg becoming his tutor. 



