40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



faction of seeing my paper in print ; but I believe 

 Dr. Grant noticed my small discovery in his excellent 

 memoir on Flustra. 



I was also a member of the Royal Medical Society, 

 and attended pretty regularly; but as the subjects were 

 exclusively medical, I did not much care about them. 

 Much rubbish was talked there, but there were some 

 good speakers, of whom the best was the present Sir 

 J. Kay-Shuttleworth. Dr. Grant took me occasion- 

 ally to the meetings of the Wernerian Society, where 

 various papers on natural history were read, discussed, 

 and afterwards published in the ' Transactions.' I 

 heard Audubon deliver there some interesting dis- 

 courses on the habits of N. American birds, sneering 

 somewhat unjustly at Waterton. By the way, a 

 negro lived in Edinburgh, who had travelled with 

 Waterton, and gained his livelihood by stuffing birds, 

 which he did excellently : he gave me lessons for 

 payment, and I used often to sit with him, for he was 

 a very pleasant and intelligent man. 



Mr. Leonard Horner also took me once to a meeting 

 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, where I saw Sir 

 Walter Scott in the chair as President, and he apolo- 

 gised to the meeting as not feeling fitted for such a 

 position. I looked at him and at the whole scene with 

 some awe and reverence, and I think it was owing to 

 this visit during my youth, and to my having attended 

 the Royal Medical Society, that I felt the honour of 

 being elected a few years ago an honorary member 

 of both these Societies, more than any other similar 

 honour. If I had been told at that time that I should 



