212 AMPELIS GARRULUS. 



AMPELIS GARRULUS, Linnteus. 

 WAXWma. 



[Of all Mr. Wolley's discoveries the one with which his name will be espe- 

 cially perpetuated is his unveiling the mystery that had hitherto surrounded 

 the breeding-habits of the Waxwing. At the time these words are written, 

 more than thirty years after the discovery was made, the present generation of 

 oologists cannot imagine the interest that had long been taken in the subject, 

 or realize the delight felt by their predecessors, the egg-collectors of the old 

 school, of whom few now remain, as well as by naturalists generally, at the 

 announcement that the hidden history of this bird — a bird whose irregular and 

 unaccountable irruptions into Central and Western Europe had for centuries 

 attracted the notice of writers — was at last made plain. All speculation on 

 the subject — and there was little else than speculation — was set at rest for 

 ever by the simple statement communicated by Mr. WoUey to the Zoological 

 Society of London, at its Meeting on the 24th of March, 1857, and in due time 

 published in its ' Proceedings ' (1857, pp. 55, 56, Aves, pi. cxxii.). To reprint 

 that statement in this place would be needless. The main facts there set 

 forth were repeated in many other publications, and no one has disputed his right 

 to the honour thence derived, though, as is well known, his failing health 

 and premature death did not permit him to give the details to the world. A 

 few years later an attempt was made to compile from his notes a connected 

 account of the discovery, illustrated by figures of half-a-dozen specimens, 

 selected by himself from his series of the bird's eggs and drawn by that master 

 of oogi'aphy, the late Mr. Hewitson (Ibis, 1861, pp. 92-106, pi. iv.). Yet 

 that account fails to convey to the reader an adequate notion of the zeal with 

 which Mr. Wolley's enquiries were prosecuted, or of the toil to himself and 

 his collectors by which their prosecution was attended, as related in the fol- 

 lowing pages. Indeed, the abstract just mentioned bears to the full narrative 

 here printed the same relation that the small number of figures of Waxwings' 

 eggs formerly given does to those of the series represented in the accompanying 

 Plate (0. W. tab. x.). In a matter of this kind almost every word of the 

 original story will be received with pleasure, and accordingly it here appears 

 with scarcely an abbreviation, and with the fewest verbal changes possible, 

 though some repetition is thereby incurred. It will, however, be observed, as 

 has elsewhere been remarked, that — discoverer as he undeniably was of the 

 mode of nidification and of the eggs of the Waxwing — Mr. Wolley himself 

 never had the good fortune to observe a single bird of that species in Lapland, 

 or to see tn situ more than one of its nests, while from that nest he never took 

 an e^xg ! These facts, after all the pains he had bestowed and all the time he 

 had spent— for since his first arrival in Lapland in June 185-3 the discovery of 

 a Waxwing's nest had been his chief object — are enough to prove the difficul- 

 ties with which he had to contend — difficulties that even his uninterrupted 

 perseverance could not overcome. 



It will be seen from the following pages that the actual finder of the first 

 Waxwing's nest was a boy, Johan of Sardio (otherwise, and perhnps more cor- 



