252 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. Vlii. 



and exhibits two separate coats of arms in the book of heraldry. 

 My mother, whose maiden name was Lamira Dow, was, I think, 

 of Irish extraction on her mother's side and of Scotch on her 

 father's, so you see we have pretty nearly the whole British Em- 

 pire at our backs. My grandfather was a Dr. Elkanah Billings 

 who settled near Brockville and practised there until he died. 

 My father was born in the State of Massachusetts and my mother 

 in the State of New York." 



Elkanah Billings, our esteemed associate for so many years, 

 was born at the family homestead, on the fifth of May, 1820. 

 His first teacher was a governess (Miss Burrit) his next a family 

 tutor named Maitland, and he afterwards went to three small 

 schools in the neighbourhood kept respectively by Messrs. Colqu- 

 houn, Collins and Fairfield. In 1832 the youth was placed at the 

 Rev. D. Turner's school in Bytown as a day pupil, and after a 

 four years' interval, during which he remained at home on the 

 farm, his parents sent him in 1837 to the St. Lawrence Academy 

 at Potsdam in the State of New York, of which the Rev. Asa 

 Brainard was principal. 



On leaving this institution Mr. Billings entered the Law 

 Society of Upper Canada as a student in 1839 and was articled 

 to Mr. James Mcintosh, a barrister in Bytowu. Mr. Mcintosh 

 died in the same year and was succeeded by Mr. Augustus Ree- 

 fer, with whom Mr. Billings remained for nearly four years; and 

 it appears that he was for a short time also in the office of the 

 late Mr. George Byron Lyon Fellowes, in the same town. In 

 1843 he went to Toronto and studied for a twelvemonth longer 

 with the legal firm of Baldwin & Wilson, and was admitted to 

 practice as an attorney in the fall of 1844. Soon after this he 

 returned to Bytown and entered into partnership with Mr. 

 Christopher Armstrong, who was then one of the judges of the 

 County Court, but a law having been passed prohibiting judges 

 from pleading, the partnership was dissolved after having lasted 

 only six months. 



In the summer of 1845 Mr. Billings went to Toronto where, 

 having first been called to the bar, he married a sister of Mr. 

 Adam Wilson, the junior partner of the firm previously mentioned, 

 now the Hon. Judge Wilson. From August 1845 until about 

 the end of 1848 he practiced his profession in Bytown partly 

 alone and partly in partnership with Mr. Robert Hervey. In 

 1849 he removed to Renfrew, and remained there, still practic- 



