74 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
wiles in one direction and about six in another. These excursions 
also extended inland for about five or six miles. He had thus 
- three distinct circuits (many views from which have been beauti- 
fully drawn by Mr. Reed as illustrations to the present volume), 
and although he only proceeded on one at a time, he generally 
managed to visit each district twice a week. 
The use which he made of his time may be judged from the 
result of these excursions. His accumulation of natural objects 
became something extraordinary: in eight years he had preserved 
nearly 2000 specimens of living creatures collected in the neigh- 
bourhood of Banff—quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fishes, crustacea, 
corals, sponges, and other objects—to say nothing of a large 
collection of carefully-dried plants, the whole of which he learnt 
to mount or preserve himself. It is melancholy to think how this 
fine collection was afterwards sacrificed! Yet so it was. Quitting 
his native place, as many a man has done, “to better himself,” 
Edward left Banff for Aberdeen, taking with him the whole of his 
treasures, and made a painful effort to gain a livelihood by opening 
his museum to the public at a small charge for admission. But 
“the people of Aberdeen were not yet prepared for such an 
exhibition, especially as it had been the work of a poor man. He 
was candidly told that he had come several centuries too soon !” 
Very few visitors came, and those who did come knew very little 
about Natural History. The receipts, never large, became less 
and less, until, to save his family from starvation and to pay off debts 
unavoidably and most unwillingly incurred, the whole. collection 
was one day sold for the pitiful sum of £20 10s.! It was 
purchased by a Mr. Grant for a son who had a taste for Natural 
History, and the specimens were all removed to his house at 
Ferryhill. They were afterwards removed to St. Nicholas Street, 
where they were stored up in some damp and unsuitable room, 
and, being otherwise neglected, it is believed that the whole 
collection eventually went to ruin. 
lt must have been a bitter pang to part with it—the cherished 
result of years of toil and trouble; but stern necessity stared him 
in the face, and Edward was glad to receive even the paltry sum 
he did to free him from the terrible anxiety of living without an 
income. He quitted Aberdeen and returned to Banff to work at 
his old trade, and felt happier to be amongst his old friends than 
with the unsympathetic folks he had left behind him. 
