CHAPTER IX. 



SHOP-KEEPING PARTNERSHIP VISIT TO ENGLAND. 



A YOUNG wife and a new business, calculated as they 

 were to absorb his attention, did not wholly abstract 

 Robertson's from more strictly intellectual pursuits. 

 It was about 1837, the year of his marriage, that he 

 began to be a naturalist, if we may appropriate that 

 term to the man who studies and observes, collects 

 and describes, not with any commercial or professional 

 aim, but for the advancement of science either in his 

 own mind or the minds of others. The commence- 

 ment he made was by attending a course of evening 

 lectures on Geology. These were delivered by Mr. 

 John Craig, author of " The New Universal, Technolo- 

 gical, Etymological, and Pronouncing Dictionary of 

 the English Language." At that time Robertson had 

 not entertained any particular preference for one 

 branch of natural history over another ; but as the 

 carboniferous shale heaps were plentiful where he had 

 spent most of his early days, and as he had, although 

 without any very definite aim, gathered fossils from 

 them, he now felt the more interest in these lectures. 

 At the close of the first season they were given up, 

 and so also for a time was his study of geology. 

 The catching of butterflies, which attracts and 



