602 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tered little about the weather. His neighbors used to say, " It is a 

 stormy night that keeps that man Edward in the house." He went 

 out in fine, starlit nights, in moonlight nights, and in cold, drizzling 

 nights. When it rained, he would look out for some hole in which he 

 could get partial protection, and then watch for night-moving ani- 

 mals, insects, and birds : foxes, badgers, rats, weasels, polecats, mice, 

 bats, owls, moths, and a host of other creatures of nocturnal habits, 

 were the objects which he sought to observe in their ways or to obtain 

 for his collections. It is comparatively easy to observe the habits of 

 animals by day, but very difficult in the obscurity and darkness of 

 night. Edward's circumstances drove him to this night-work, and 

 soon made him expert in this peculiar line of observation. He often 

 went out in winter, but his principal night-work was by moonlight, 

 from spring to autumn. Seeing was of course difficult, but was greatly 

 helped by the sounds of the midnight prowlers. In the course of a 

 few years he learned to know all the beasts and birds of the district 

 frequented by him. He knew the former by their barkings, gruntings, 

 and various cries, and the latter he could identify even by the sounds 

 of their wings when flying. He could tell the species and families of 

 birds by their calbnotes as they flew by. He would watch the fights, 

 greetings, pranks, predacious assaults, and peculiar ways, of the mid- 

 night roamers, between snatches of sleep, and thus extended and 

 made much more accurate one of the obscurest branches of natural 

 history. Mr. Edward had numerous adventures in these nocturnal 

 excursions, which are vividly related by Mr. Smiles, who also goes 

 into much detail to illustrate the perils, exposures, and privations, of 

 this mode of life. 



Mr. Edward continued his night-researches for about fifteen years, 

 his excursions extending- for six or eight miles in different directions. 

 He found many new specimens, and was particularly persistent in 

 working at the birds which greatly abound in that region. He thus 

 rapidly accumulated the objects for a collection, and after eight years 

 had preserved nearly 2,000 specimens of living creatures found in the 

 neighborhood of Banff, most of which consisted of quadrupeds, birds, 

 reptiles, fishes, Crustacea, star-fish, zoophytes, corals, sponges, and 

 other objects, together with an immense number of plants. He 

 placed these in cases, which he made himself by the aid of a shoe- 

 maker's knife, a saw, and a hammer. He stuffed his own birds, and 

 mounted all his own objects. Of course, he was not exempt from the 

 accidents to which such material is exposed. He had deposited twenty 

 boxes, containing 916 insects, in his garret, and when he went to fetch 

 them he found they had been all eaten by the mice, the pins only re- 

 maining, with here and there a head, leg, or wing. On another occasion, 

 having put 2,000 preserved plants in a box which was carefully placed 

 out of harm's way, when he went to overhaul them he found that the 

 cats had made their lair in the box and ruined the whole collection. 



