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12 
which (the original of the figure in the ‘Illustrated Proceedings’*) was afterwards deposited, 
with an egg, in the British Museum, while the other was presented (also with an egg) to the 
museum at Norwich, the authorities of which had for some time past taken a warm interest in 
Mr. Wolley’s researches,—a pair of birds in their breeding-plumage, the nestling before men- 
tioned (all three of which are now at Norwich), and some seven or eight examples of the egg. 
Of these latter, the two figured in the plate in the ‘ Proceedings’ were subsequently sold at 
Mr. Stevens's rooms, and purchased by Sir William Milner, in whose collection they still remain. 
A third, sold at the same time, became the property of Mr. Henry Walter; and specimens were 
given to Mr. Wilmot, Mr. W. H. Simpson, and myself. 
“Tn all, Mr. Wolley obtained twenty-nine eggs of the Waxwing in 1856. Later on in the 
autumn, an intelligent Lapp informed him that he remembered having seen a bird some twenty 
years before, and once or twice since had seen or heard another, but that was perhaps ten years 
previously. On the other hand, in 1856 he had seen them some half dozen times, and found a 
nest, from which, however, the young ones flew. This nest he subsequently brought very care- 
fully, with the branch on which it was built, to Mr. Wolley, by whom it was sent the following 
year, by the hands of Dr. Edwin Nylander, to the museum of the University of Helsingfors. 
The Lapp added that in the spring he had observed of the birds that ‘ they flew up in the air, 
and came and sat in the same spot whence they had flown—he thought, in play; but perhaps 
they were catching insects,’ as Mr. Wolley himself suggested. 
“Tn 1857, it seems that the Waxwing was still more rarely distributed in Lapland than it 
had been the preceding year. Mr. Wolley was of course exceedingly desirous of taking a nest 
with his own hands, and for this purpose devoted to the search much of his time before crossing 
the district hitherto unexplored by him between the Muonio valley and the head-waters of the 
Tana. In this object he was only partially successful. He writes, ‘ For myself, I could not, in 
spite of every exertion, get a living Waxwing within range of my pair of eyes. I took a nest 
which had been deserted a day or two before, and from which something had thrown the eggs, 
one after another, upon the ground as fast as they were laid; of course, broken to bits. It was 
close to the house at Sardio. In vain I wandered through the woods, and scarcely shut my eyes 
at night. Many people were on the look-out; but, after the nest of three eggs I told you of 
from Jerisjarvi, the only arrival has been a perfect nest of five eggs found by Piko Heiki, whom 
I desired to give up every thing else, and work all the mountain-district for Waxwing.’ ‘The nest 
thus taken by Mr. Wolley, and which I intend to retain in my possession, as being the only one 
taken by him, bears date ‘16th June, 1857.’ It was built in a Spruce, and agrees in most 
respects with those previously seen and described by him. The eight eggs just mentioned were 
the only ones obtained by him that year; for, though another nest with five eggs was taken for 
him by one of his most trusty collectors on an island, Ajos-saari, in the Gulf of Bothnia, near 
Kemi-suu (the mouth of the Kemi river), the finder was induced to part with it to a Russian 
traveller for three silver rubles, ‘the doctor having represented that Mr. Wolley had already as 
many as he wanted, a statement certainly not in accordance with the facts; for Mr. Wolley had, 
in giving him a nest, promised that, if he had them to spare the next year, he would transmit 
specimens of the eggs to the museum at Helsingfors. ‘This same person, whose zeal might have 
«* Tilustr. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857, Aves, pl. exxi.” 
