JOHN WOLLEY 13 



destined to have so profound an influence on that of 

 Newton, that a short account of his life may fittingly be 

 given here. He was the eldest son of the Rev. John 

 Wolley, afterwards vicar of Beeston, Notts, and was 

 born in 1824. From Eton, where he spent six years, he 

 went to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1842. He 

 graduated in 1846 and in 1847 he went to Edinburgh, 

 where he studied medicine for three years. His vaca- 

 tions were devoted to the pursuit of Natural History, 

 and on his egg-collecting expeditions he gained a remark- 

 able familiarity with the most remote districts of the 

 British Islands. 



John Wolley's more important travels and ornitho- 

 logical discoveries may be told in Newton's words : * 



He left England for the North in April, 1853. He had 

 become persuaded from careful consideration of many 

 facts that the country between the head of the Gulf of 

 Bothnia and the Arctic Ocean must be the breeding 

 place of many birds whose homes were unknown. He 

 was delayed both at Gottenburg and Stockholm by the 

 difficulty of getting local information, and was finally 

 compelled to start knowing very little of what was 

 required. He went up with the Spring, instead of being 

 beforehand with it, and his progress was slow. 



When he got to Muonioniska he found himself too 

 late for the eggs of the Birds of Prey, and I now have the 

 hatched-out shell of a Rough-legged Buzzard's egg, 

 which was the only bit of such a common species as that 

 which he procured. In those days no one in England 

 had an authenticated egg of that bird. It was the same 

 with Cranes and many others. Siberian Jays (the eggs 

 then quite unknown) had hatched out long since. He 

 got a single nest of Temminck's Stint and some 4 or 5 

 Jack-Snipes' (both unknown in England), about as many 

 nests of Broad-billed Sandpiper, but that had before 



* Letter to J. A. Harvie-Brown, April 7, 1874. 



