32 EDWARD FORBES. 



first time in Knox's rooms, and instinctively drew 

 towards each other with the confidence of travellers 

 going the same road, and formed a friendship that 

 became firm, cordial, and permanent. Goodsir gave 

 Forbes his first lesson in comparative anatomy by 

 showing him how to dissect a snail of the genus 

 Clausilia, found on Arthur's Seat. Forbes benefited 

 greatly by his friend's hints, and took earnestly to 

 malacology ; and in after years became an authority 

 in the natural history of the mollusca. The two lads, 

 Fife and Manx, being of tall stature and characteristic- 

 ally visaged, though of different type, were the most 

 conspicuous members of the anatomical class : gemini 

 in their evolutions and craving search for the lower 

 organisms, they were looked upon as a double star 

 rising above the horizon of their compeers. Mr. 

 Joseph Goodsir says of them — " Their ages differing 

 only by a year, their mental and moral constitution, 

 as also their intellectual and aesthetic tastes, fitted to 

 work in harmony, even by the striking contrasts they 

 presented — their very physical constitution, both 

 being tall, lithe and powerful men in their respective 

 fashions — by all these things they were formed to be 

 companions and collaborateurs." 



Mr. Forbes persuaded Goodsir to accompany him 

 to a meeting of the " Royal Physical Society," as a 

 paper was to be read on the chameleon. The theory 

 of the action of the tongue in the chameleon, as given 

 by the essayist, Forbes knew from Goodsir 's dissections 

 to be incorrect ; so, without asking his bashful friend's 



