1 8 The Scottish Naturalist. 



poor — to make himself rich by application to business, Don, like 

 Dick, is an instance — and there are many in the working classes 

 — of a life devoted to one idea ; heroes, yet receiving no reward, 

 except such reward as earnest work in itself gives. Yet despite 

 the apparent failure of such lives, they stand out in marked con- 

 trast to the insipidities, the mediocrities, or the merely fashionable 

 crowd. In such cases, with such lives, any errors, so long as they 

 are only errors, should be tenderly dealt with. Some of us at 

 least who have trodden over the same lovely district, and who 

 have gathered in the identical localities many of the rich treasures 

 Don has made known, can feel some gratitude for his labour and 

 respect for his memory and life. 



A short memoir of George Don appeared in vol. hi. of the 

 Bota7iical Gazette, by Patrick Neill, LL.D., of Canonmills, 

 treasurer of the fund raised for Don's widow, which gives some 

 interesting information. 



Don's early education was limited to the reading, writing, and 

 arithmetic taught at the parish school. He had a natural turn 

 for mechanics, and acquired a taste for reading and observation. 

 Even from his boyish days he delighted in noticing the minute 

 characters of such birds, insects, and plants as came within his 

 reach. He was apprenticed to a clockmaker in the town of Dun- 

 blane, and here formed his first hortus siccus, consisting of all the 

 phsenogamous and cryptogamous plants which he could cull in 

 the neighbourhood. When he became a journeyman he removed 

 to Glasgow, and here he generally worked five days a week at his 

 business, and in this space of time finished the making of a clock; 

 the remainder of the week was spent in botanizing if the weather 

 permitted. Occasionally he stole an additional day or two and 

 penetrated into the Highlands as far as Ben Lomond, or even Ben 

 Lawers, in search of alpine plants, adding several unexpected 

 varieties to the lists known to Mr. Lightfoot or to his guide, the 

 excellent Dr. Stuart of Luss. 



Having himself saved a very small sum of money, and married 

 a young woman (see Mr. Knox's paper), who had also saved a 

 little money, he went to Forfar and procured a lease for 99 years 

 of a small bit of ground from Charles Gray, Esq. of Carse, at a 

 trifling rent, but on condition of his building a cottage of certain 

 dimensions within a given period. There he spent four years 

 necessarily in a very frugal and penurious style. The chief part 



