INTRODUCTION. 



When in 1864 I published the first part of this volume I had 

 every reason to expect that within a few months I should bring 

 out the second, for which four of the plates were already 

 executed. To recount the various events which successively 

 hindered the work would interest few people, but I never gave 

 up the intention of continuing it, as some may have supposed, 

 and at last, other more pressing tasks being done, the oppor- 

 tunity came for me to go on with it, so that I can now offer to 

 the public the complement of the first volume of the anciently 

 conceived Ootheca Wolleyana. 



Something, however, has been gained by the long delay ; 

 and, among others, 1 have been able to include in the collection, 

 and therefore to mention in this Catalogue, eggs which had 

 always baffled Mr. Wolley's strenuous efforts. Most of them 

 I owe to the exertions of men employed on my behalf by 

 K^^OBLOCK (the father), whom, for some years after Mr. Wolley's 

 death, 1 kept in my pay. When these were obtained, I felt 

 that the work begun by him in Lapland was completed, and 

 that I might withdraw from the field, since the eggs of every 

 species of bird hitherto known to breed in that country had 

 now been procured, directly or indirectly, through his means. 



