diff --git a/scrapy/tests/test_utils_misc/__init__.py b/scrapy/tests/test_utils_misc/__init__.py
index 60a95d5bf..5c8a1d7d9 100644
--- a/scrapy/tests/test_utils_misc/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/tests/test_utils_misc/__init__.py
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+import sys
+import os
 import unittest
 from cStringIO import StringIO
 
@@ -34,7 +36,22 @@ class UtilsMiscTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
         ]
         self.assertEquals(set([m.__name__ for m in mods]), set(expected))
 
-        self.assertRaises(ImportError, list, walk_modules('nomodule999'))
+        self.assertRaises(ImportError, walk_modules, 'nomodule999')
+
+    def test_walk_modules_egg(self):
+        egg = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'test.egg')
+        sys.path.append(egg)
+        try:
+            mods = walk_modules('testegg')
+            expected = [
+                'testegg.spiders',
+                'testegg.spiders.a',
+                'testegg.spiders.b',
+                'testegg'
+            ]
+            self.assertEquals(set([m.__name__ for m in mods]), set(expected))
+        finally:
+            sys.path.remove(egg)
 
     def test_arg_to_iter(self):
         assert hasattr(arg_to_iter(None), '__iter__')
diff --git a/scrapy/tests/test_utils_misc/test.egg b/scrapy/tests/test_utils_misc/test.egg
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..238517694
Binary files /dev/null and b/scrapy/tests/test_utils_misc/test.egg differ
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/misc.py b/scrapy/utils/misc.py
index 0f9473441..e61b7aeb4 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/misc.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/misc.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 import re
 import hashlib
-from pkgutil import walk_packages
+from pkgutil import iter_modules
 
 from scrapy.utils.python import flatten
 from scrapy.utils.markup import remove_entities
@@ -45,17 +45,26 @@ def load_object(path):
 
     return obj
 
-def walk_modules(path):
-    """Loads a module and all its submodules given its absolute path and
-    returns them.
+def walk_modules(path, load=False):
+    """Loads a module and all its submodules from a the given module path and
+    returns them. If *any* module throws an exception while importing, that
+    exception is thrown back.
 
-    path ie: 'scrapy.contrib.downloadermiddelware.redirect'
+    For example: walk_modules('scrapy.utils')
     """
+
+    mods = []
     mod = __import__(path, {}, {}, [''])
+    mods.append(mod)
     if hasattr(mod, '__path__'):
-        for _, path, _ in walk_packages(mod.__path__, mod.__name__ + '.'):
-            yield __import__(path, {}, {}, [''])
-    yield mod
+        for _, subpath, ispkg in iter_modules(mod.__path__):
+            fullpath = path + '.' + subpath
+            if ispkg:
+                mods += walk_modules(fullpath)
+            else:
+                submod = __import__(fullpath, {}, {}, [''])
+                mods.append(submod)
+    return mods
 
 def extract_regex(regex, text, encoding='utf-8'):
     """Extract a list of unicode strings from the given text/encoding using the following policies: