92 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



wonder at this nightly visitation ; and the owner of the bull must 

 sometimes have pondered a little on the draggled state in which 

 the swamps would now and then leave his beast ; but no other 

 harm came of it." * 



His love of animals has already been noticed. f Next to his 

 boats, if not claiming an equal share of attention, came his game- 

 cocks ; these afforded a favorite pastime while he was at Oxford. 

 As other men keep their studs, and are careful of the pedigree and 

 training of their racers, so did Wilson watch with studious solici- 

 tude over the development and reputation of his game-birds. The 

 setting down of hens to hatch was registered as duly and gravely 

 as an astronomer notes the transit of the planets ; the number of 

 eggs, the day of the month, and sometimes even the hour of the 

 day being carefully specified. J 



In one of the MS. books containing the principal portion of The 

 Isle of Palms, I find many of these quaint entries in most eccen- 

 tric juxtaposition to notes of a very different kind.§ Along with 



* Letter in Edinburgh Literary Gazette. 



t Of this there are numberless indications in his works. Birds were h s special favorites, but 

 he was a general lover of animals, beasts, birds, and insects. Even that, to most people, un- 

 pleasant creature the spider, was interesting to him ; and the Nodes contain sundry references to 

 his observations on their habits. "I love spiders," he says; "look at the lineal descendant of 

 Arachne ; how beautifully she descends from the chair of Christopher North to the lower regions 

 of our earth." See Works, vol. i., 120 ; vol. ii., 148, 178, 230, 252, 262. Regarding his qualifications 

 as a naturalist, De Quincey writes: — " Perhaps you already know from your countryman Audubon, 

 that the Professor is himself a naturalist, and of original merit; in fact, worth a score of such 

 meagre bookish naturalists as are formed in museums and by second-hand acts of memory ; having 

 (like Audubon) built much of his knowledge upon personal observation. Hence he has two 

 great advantages ; one, that his knowledge is accurate in a very unusual degree; and another, 

 that this knowledge, having grown up under the inspiration of a real interest and an unaffected 

 love for its objects — commencing, indeed, at an age when no affectation in matters of that nature 

 could exist — has settled upon those facts and circumstances which have a true philosophical 

 value: habits, predominant affections, the direction of instincts, and the compensatory processes 

 where these happen to be thwarted — on all such topics he is learned and full; whilst, on the 

 science of measurements and proportions, applied to dorsal fins and tail-feathers, and on the exact 

 arrangement of colors. &c. — that petty upholstery of nature, on which books are so tedious and 

 elaborate — not uncommonly he is negligent or forgetful." 



% The following are some specimens from his memoranda: 



"Small Paisley hen set herself with no fewer than nine eggs on Monday, the 6th of July. 

 Black Edinburgh hen was set on Tuesday, the 23d of June, with twelve eggs— middle of the 

 day. Large Paisley hen was set on Wednesday, the 24th of June, with twelve eggs — middle 

 of the day ; one egg laid the day after she was set Bed pullet in Josie's barn was set with 

 nine eggs on Thursday, the 2d of July. Sister to the above, was set with five eggs same day, 

 but they had been sat upon a day or two before. Small black muffled hen set herself with 

 about eight eggs on Monday night, or Tuesday morning, 7th July." 



§ Side by side with those beautiful lines beginning — 



"Oh, Fairy Child! what can I wish for thee? 

 Like a perennial flow'ret may'st thou be, 

 That spends its life in beauty and in bliss; 



