cn. ii.] EDINBURGH. 13 



with several young men fond of natural science. One of 

 these was Ainsworth, who afterwards published his travels 

 iu Assyria ; he was a Wernerian geologist, and knew a little 

 about many subjects. Dr. Coldstream * was a very differ- 

 ent young man, prim, formal, highly religious, and most 

 kind-hearted ; he afterwards published some good zoological 

 articles. A third young man was Hardie, who would, I 

 think, have made a good botanist, but died early in India. 

 Lastly, Dr. Grant, my senior by several years, but how I be- 

 came' acquainted with him I cannot remember ; he pub- 

 lished some first-rate zoological papers, but after coming to 

 London as Professor in L T niversity College, he did nothing 

 more in science, a fact which has always been inexplicable 

 to me. I knew him well ; he was dry and formal in man- 

 ner, with much enthusiasm beneath this outer crust. He 

 one day, when we were walking together, burst forth in high 

 admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. I lis- 

 tened in silent astonishment, and as far as I can judge, with- 

 out any effect on my mind. I had previously read the 

 Zoonomia of my grandfather, in which similar views are 

 maintained, but without producing any effect on me. Nev- 

 ertheless it is probable that the hearing rather early in life 

 such views maintained and praised may have favoured my 

 upholding them under a different form in my Origin of Spe- 

 cies. At this time I admired greatly the Zoonomia ; but on 

 reading it a second time after an interval of ten or fifteen 

 years, I was much disappointed ; the proportion of specula- 

 tion being so large to the facts given. 



Drs. Grant and Coldstream attended much to marine 

 Zoology, and I often accompanied the former to collect ani- 

 mals in the tidal pools, which I dissected as well as I could. 

 I also became friends with some of the Newhaven fisher- 

 men, and sometimes accompanied them when they trawled 

 for oysters, and thus got many specimens. But from not 

 having had any regular practice in dissection, and from 

 possessing only a wretched microscope, my attempts were 

 very poor. Nevertheless I made one interesting little dis- 

 covery, and read, about the beginning of the year 1826, a 

 short paper on the subject before the Plinian Society. 

 This was that the so-called ova of Flustra had the power of 

 independent movement by means of cilia, and were in fact 



* Dr. Coldstream died September 17, 1863 ; see Crown 16mo. Book Tract, 

 jSo. 19 of the Keligious Tract Society (no date). 



