i860] Fresh Stimulus to Ornithology. 109 



CHAPTER XVI. 



FRESH STIMULUS TO ORNITHOLOGY. 



[1860.] 



A PAPER on " Rare Birds observed in the Isle of Wight," 

 which he contributed to the February number of the 

 " Zoologist," is notable chiefly as having led to the starting 

 of his long correspondence and friendship with Mr. Alfred 

 Newton. 



These were the early days of the " British Ornitholo- 

 gists' Union " and their famous magazine the "Ibis/* whose 

 founders being nearly all Cambridge men comprised 

 several old acquaintances of his University days, and 

 among them Mr. Edward Newton, his friendship with 

 whom began, as we saw, in 1855, and had largely paved 

 the way towards that with his brother. 



He certainly felt unusual pleasure when, a few days 

 after the appearance of his paper in the " Zoologist," he 

 received a long letter from Mr. Alfred Newton, expressing 

 the friendliest interest in both his recent ornithological 

 efforts, and at the same time freely discussing some of the 

 views maintained in the later of them, particularly the 

 admission of a certain supposed " Northern Puffin," or 

 " Mormon glacialis," into the list of stragglers to the Isle 

 of Wight. 



His reply bears date February 8th, 1860 : 



DEAR SIR, First let me thank you for your kind letter. It is very 

 cheering to the country-living and solitary naturalist to find a sympa- 

 thizing hand extended in so friendly a manner as yours. I hope that 

 you will let me look upon this renewed correspondence with Elveden as 

 an omen for future success in Ornithology, no less than as a pledge 

 that you have forgiven my want of zeal on behalf of that venerable bird 

 the Ibis, whose priest and interpreter we know "hails " from Elveden. 

 And let not that priest too hastily set me down as a heretic. . . . When- 

 ever I find leisure to elaborate that isocheimonal matter, and some of the 



