At an early period of his life Mr Wilson felt depressed by 

 the want of a vocation. He had quitted the writer's office 

 without any intention of following out the law; and, with 

 broken health, and no profession, it almost looked as if 

 existence would pass idly and ingloriously away. But, 

 by cultivating those tastes and affinities with which the 

 Author of his being had endoAved him, he soon created a 

 calling for himself. So ample and so practical was his 

 acquaintance with all departments of natural history, and 

 so notorious were his obligingness and courtesy, that he 

 was resorted to by young and old of his countrymen in 

 quest of information ; whilst, like Broderip and Buckland, 

 the fascination of his picturesque and sprightly pen 

 attracted multitudes of readers, who cared nothing for 

 zoology, and who (as he himself would have said) could 

 scarcely distinguish a bee from a bison. The consequence 

 was that, as already mentioned, his occupations increased 

 from year to year ; and, probably, no period was so busy 

 or so happy as that closing lustrum of which we are now 

 to give some account. Mxich of his time was generously 



