-94 The Scottish Naturalist. 



he beguiled school-fellows to accompany him on these expeditions ; 

 but usually, he found it hardly possibly to induce other boys to 

 go with him, after they had experienced the punishments to which 

 they were treated on their return home. The efforts to restrain 

 his wandering habits, and to make him attend school, and the 

 failure of every attempt of the kind, are amusingly told in Smiles' 

 book. In fact, he came to be regarded as incorrigible ; and his 

 parents must have been sorely tried with him. Even by the age 

 of six, it is said, he was dismissed from three schools. The pets 

 he brought with him were the cause of disgrace in two schools ; 

 and the suspicion that he had brought a " Maggie monyfeet," or 

 centipede, that bit his teacher one day when Edward happened 

 to be at school, led to his being severely thrashed, and then to 

 his expulsion on his persisting in the assertion of his innocence on 

 this occasion. This seems to have terminated his education at 

 school; and what he learned afterwards, he had to pick up as best 

 he could. This subsequently stood much in the way of his 

 studies, when it would have been of inestimable value to him to 

 have been able to make use readily of such scientific works as he 

 could obtain access to ; but the means of proper elementary 

 training were never again within his reach. 



While a mere child, he was employed in a tobacco-spinner's at 

 wages beginning at is. 2d. a week ; in the two years he was there, 

 his wages were raised to is. 6d. He then got employment at 

 Grandholm mills on the Don, near Aberdeen, at a considerable 

 rise of wages, but with long hours of work. Despite the long 

 hours, he continued to spend a good deal of time in the woods 

 and waste-ground for several miles around the works. In the 

 mills he remained for about two years ; and he used to look back 

 to this as one of the happiest periods of his life. 



When eleven years old, he was bound apprentice for six years 

 to a shoemaker, Charles Beggs, in the Gallowgate, Aberdeen, a 

 man who could do his work well, but who was very frequently 

 drunk, and was often cruel. He had a special aversion to 

 Edward's tastes ; and used to destroy such specimens as he 

 brought into the shop in his pockets. He twice killed the boy's 

 pets ; and on the second occasion Edward went home, and re- 

 fused to return to the shop, despite the threat of a prosecution 

 for his broken indenture. 



He next tried to get away as a cabin-boy, but could not do so 



