1 EARLY YEARS. 



flora, it exhibits a corresponding diversity of insect forms; 

 and whilst woods and waters are populous with birds of 

 every size, from the wren at Bonally to the gannet on 

 the Bass, it will be long before the marine zoologist ex- 

 hausts his aquarium in the Frith — it will be long before 

 the cabinets at Craigleith and Burdiehouse have disclosed 

 to the paleontologist all the relics preserved on their 

 shelves of stone. For botany and geology James Wilson 

 never conceived any particular affection ; but from earliest 

 childhood the whole of animated nature found entrance to 

 his soul, and acquired new vitality and significance there. 

 Indeed, it was the life that is in them and around them 

 which formed his great attraction to the lower creatures. 

 Some naturalists are mere collectors. They prefer the bird 

 in the hand to any number in the bush, and would rather 

 contemplate a stuffed eagle inside their glass-fronted cup- 

 board than watch the king of birds as, above the peaks 

 of Atlas, he " cleaves the adverse storm, and cuffs it with 

 his wings ; " and, like numismatologists, they go on adding 

 cone to cone and carabus to carabus, very forgetful of the 

 living history of which they have there the medal and 

 memorial. Others of a nobler type are mere anatomists. 

 Intent on structure, they would not grudge the industrious 

 years which Lyonnet devoted to the nerves and muscles of 

 a grub, and to their piercing eye a chimpanzee or peer of 

 Parliament is little better than a skeleton with a ticket-of- 



