CHAP. i. THE GREEN AT ABERDEEN. 5 



were also the Inches, near the mouth of the Dee, 

 over which the tide flowed daily. 



Since then, the appearance of that part of Aber- 

 deen has become entirely changed. Kailways have 

 blotted out many of the remnants of old cities.* The 

 Green is now covered with houses, factories, and the 

 Aberdeen Eailway Station, its warehouses, sidings, 

 and station rooms. A very fine bridge has been erected 

 over the Green, now forming part of Union Street ; 

 the Palace Hotel overlooking the railway station and 

 the surrounding buildings. 



Thomas Edward was brought up in his parents' 

 house in the Green, such as it was sixty years ago. 

 It is difficult to describe how he became a naturalist. 

 He himself says he could never tell. Various in- 

 fluences determine the direction of a boy's likings 

 and dislikings. Boys who live in the country are 

 usually fond of birds and bird-nesting ; just as girls 

 who live at home are fond of dolls and doll-keeping. 

 But this boy had more than the ordinary tendency 



* Some antiquarian writers are of opinion that "The Green" 

 was the site of ancient Aberdeen. For instance, Sir Samuel Forbes 

 of Foveran, in his Description of Aberdeenshire (1715), says, "From 

 the end of the last-mentioned straight street [the Upper Kirkgate], 

 there runs another southward and obliquely [the Nether Kirkgate], 

 leading also to the town churches, and terminates in a pretty broad 

 street, lying flat, and called the Green, the seat of the ancient city ; 

 where the river Dee receives a small rivulet, called the Denburn, 

 covered with a bridge of three arches." Turreffs's Antiquarian 

 Gleanings, 290. 



