122 Sketch of the Life of Mr, David Douglas. 



next a favourite companion of the professor during his periodi- 

 eal excursions through the Highlands of Scotland, his capacity 

 was quickly recognised hy the keen judgment of Hooker, and the 

 noble qualities of his mind pointed him out as one from whom 

 much might be expected. 



Douglas was afterwards recommended as botanical collector to 

 the London Horticultural Society, for which he was indebted to Sir 

 William, as well as to Mr. Stewart, Nursery Curator of the Glasgow 

 Botanic Grardens, who always took a lively interest in his welfare. 

 The recommendation was attended to, and the first appointment 

 made out for the young botanist was to the United States. In 

 the summer of 1823, he there procured many fine plants for the 

 Society and added greatly to its collection of fruit trees. Pleased 

 with his exertions, the Horticultural Society, thought of a 

 wider field for their new collector, and the interior of North West 

 America being a region yet unexplored by any naturalist, they 

 wisely determined upon availing themselves of Douglas's youthful 

 vigour and talents in that quarter. Joseph Sabine Esquire, then 

 Honorary Secretary to the Society, took the most friendly notice of 

 Douglas, and was also highly interested in the success of his mis- 

 sion, and the then Governor or Deputy-Governor of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, afibrded every kind assistance, and such valuable 

 information towards the prosecution of his labors, as to insure 

 liappy results. 



The 25th of July 1824, found our scientific adventurer on 

 board the Hudson Bay Company's ship William and Anne, 

 fortunate in having the companionship of Dr. Scouler of Glasgow, 

 a younger man than himself, but ardently devoted to everything 

 pertaining to natural history. An extract from the sketch of his 

 life taken from a London botanical periodical, will give some idea 

 of the style in which Douglas recorded his observations on living 

 nature. After crossing the tropics, he wi'ites thus of the Albatross. 



" While within the paralells of 50° and 60^^, I caught sixty-nine 

 ^' specimens of JDiomeda, consisting of D. exulaus^fulginosa, and 

 '' chlororynclios. The last, though a smaller bird than the first, 

 " reigns lord paramount over the rest, and compels them all to flee 

 " at his approach. It is stated by most authors that these birds 

 '* are taken with the greatest ease during warm weather ; it was 

 " only during the driving gusts of a storm that I could secure them, 

 " and on such occasions they fight voraciously about the bait, the 

 " hook often being received into the stomach. The appearance of 



