14: AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [ch. ii. 



larvae. In another short paper, I showed that the little 

 globular bodies, which had been supposed to be the young 

 state of Fucus loreus, were the egg-cases of the worm-like 

 PontoMella muricata. 



The Plinian Society* was encouraged and, I believe, 

 founded by Professor Jameson : it consisted of students, 

 and met in an underground room in the University for the 

 sake of reading papers on natural science and discussing 

 them. I used regularly to attend, and the meetings had a 

 good effect on me in stimulating my zeal and giving me new 

 congenial acquaintances. One evening a poor young man 

 got up, and after stammering for a prodigious length of time, 

 blushing crimson, he at last slowly got out the words, " Mr. 

 President, I have forgotten what I was going to say." 

 The poor fellow looked quite overwhelmed, and all the 

 members were so surprised that no one could think of a 

 word to say to cover his confusion. The papers which were 

 read to our little society were not printed, so that I had not 

 the satisfaction of seeing my paper in print ; but I believe 

 Dr. Grant noticed my small discovery in his excellent mem- 

 oir on Flustra. 



I was also a member of the Royal Medical Society, and 

 attended pretty regularly ; but as the subjects were exclu- 

 sively medical, I did not much care about them. Much 

 rubbish was talked there, but there were some good speak- 

 ers, of whom the best was the [late] Sir J. Kay-Shuttle- 

 worth. Dr. Grant took me occasionally to the meetings of 

 the Wernerian Society, where various papers on natural his- 

 tory were read, discussed, and afterwards published in the 

 Transactions. I heard Audubon deliver there some inter- 

 esting discourses on the habits of 1ST. American birds, sneer- 

 ing somewhat unjustly at Waterton. By the way, a negro 

 lived in Edinburgh, who had travelled with Waterton, and 

 gained his livelihood by stuffing birds, which he did excel- 

 lently : he gave me lessons for payment, and I used often 

 to sit with him, for he was a very pleasant and intelligent 

 man. 



Mr. Leonard Horner also took me once to a meeting of 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh, where I saw Sir Walter 

 Scott in the chair as President, and he apologised to the 

 meeting as not feeling fitted for such a position. I looked 



* The society was founded in 1823, and expired about 1848 {Edinburgh 

 Weekly Dispatch, May 22, 1888). 



