96 THE COMING [CH. 



garden tool-house. From his earliest infancy he was 

 a collector, first of trifles, like seals and franks, but 

 later of stones, minerals and beetles. 



At the outset, only the desire to possess new 

 things animated him, then a wish to put names to 

 them, but, at a very early period, a passion arose for 

 learning all he could about them. Thus when only 

 9 or 10 years of age, he had 'a desire of being able 

 to know something about every pebble in front of 

 the hall-door/ and at 13 or 14, when he heard the 

 remark of a local naturalist, 'that the world would 

 come to an end before anyone would be able to 

 explain how ' a boulder (the 'bell-stone' of local-fame) 

 came to be brought from distant hills the lad had such 

 a deep impression made on his mind, that he says in 

 after life, ' I meditated over this wonderful stone 95 .' 



At the age of 16, he was sent to Edinburgh 

 University to prepare himself for the work of a 

 doctor the profession of his father and grandfather. 

 But here his independence of character again asserted 

 itself. He found most of the lectures 'intolerably 

 dull,' so he occupied himself with other pursuits, 

 making many friendships among the younger 

 naturalists and doing a little in the way of biological 

 research himself. 



That he was not altogether destitute of ambition 

 in the eyes of his companions, however, is, I think, 

 indicated by an amusing circumstance. In the 



