PREFACE. 3 



in Upper Canada, who accompanied me on my rambles, 

 and most zealously strove to add to our common store 

 of knowledge, both in Zoology and in Botany. How 

 many pleasant and successful excursions, in quest of 

 plants and animals, we made together on the romantic 

 braes of the Don, the pebbly shores of the Dee, the rocks 

 of the Cove, the sands of the sea-shore, and the bleak 

 moors of the interior, I cannot now tell ; nor would the 

 enumeration be so interesting to you as it might prove 

 agreeable to myself. The fascinations of these pursuits 

 were such, that, after studying medicine for nearly five 

 years, during part of which time I officiated as dissector 

 to the lecturer on Anatomy at Marischal College, J re- 

 solved to relinquish it, and devote my attention exclu- 

 sively to Natural History. Under many difficulties I 

 persevered, rambled over most parts of Scotland, from 

 the rugged shores of Loch Maree to the romantic banks 

 of the Esk, explored the desolate isles of the west, and 

 walked, with my journal and Smith's Flora Britannica 

 on my back, from Aberdeen to London, for the purpose 

 of seeing the country and visiting the British Museum. 

 Having been advised by a friend to engage in a kind of 

 mineralogical speculation, I afterwards went to Edin- 

 burgh, where I had the advantage of hearing Professor 

 Jameson's lectures. I then betook myself to the Outer 

 Hebrides, where I hammered at the gneiss rocks, ga- 

 thered gulls' eggs, and shot plovers and pigeons, until 

 finding the trade dull, I returned to the civilized part of 



