BEETLE-HUNTS. 13 



became a very diligent collector of insects, and seemed at 

 all times to be more interested in observing their habits 

 and studying their characters, so to speak, than in ascer- 

 taining and classifying their external distinctives. I state 

 this from personal observation, for I was not unfrequently 

 the companion of his entomological rambles, or ' beetle- 

 hunts,' as I used to call them." 



Nor was it merely the life that was in them, but the 

 great wide life which was over and around them, so abun- 

 dant and so beautiful. To James Wilson was given this 

 rare perception — a poet's intuition rendered still more ex- 

 quisite by " a natural piety." Even before the bright 

 hopes of the Christian revelation had lit up his personal 

 future, the surrounding scene was irradiated by the Divine 

 presence ; and although there might sometimes be too 

 much of pantheistic vagueness in the recollection, it often 

 kindled up into a consciousness which warmed his heart 

 and filled his eyes. For rough and athletic sports he had 

 no strength, for boisterous festivities no turn : it was there- 

 fore his great delight to hie away to the sea-shore or the 

 mountain side, and court those companionships which 



found in Edinburgh, in Mr Wilson's early days, the society of one so 

 ent was a great acquisition ; but his rapid and impetuous ways were 

 not in unison with Mr Wilson's orderly and painstaking disposition. 

 Speaking of Leach's letters, he says in a note to Sir W. Jardine, " He 

 always wrote like a man standing on one leg, and in a hurry to be 

 done." 



