Bumtisland* 15 



smelt strongly of fish, certainly ; yet the people 

 were very clean personally. I recollect their 

 keeping tame gulls, which they fed with fish offal. 



Although there was no individual enmity between 

 the boys of the old and of the new or aristocratic 

 part of Edinburgh, there were frequent battles, called 

 " bickers," between them, in which they pelted each 

 other with stones. Sometimes they were joined by 

 bigger lads, and then the fight became so serious 

 that the magistrates sent the city guard a set of 

 old men with halberds and a quaint uniform to 

 separate them ; but no sooner did the guard appear, 

 than both parties joined against them. 



Strings of wild geese were common in autumn, 

 and I was amused on one occasion to see the clumsy 

 tame fat geese which were feeding on the Links rise 

 in a body and try to follow the wild ones. 



As the grass on the plot before our house did not 

 form a fine even turf, the ground was trenched and 

 sown with good seed, but along with the grass a vast 

 crop of thistles and groundsel appeared, which at- 

 tracted quantities of goldfinches, and in the early 

 mornings I have seen as many as sixty to eighty of 

 these beautiful birds feeding on it. 



My love of birds has continued through life, for 

 only two years ago, in my extreme old age, I lost a 

 pet mountain sparrow, which for eight years was my 



