130 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



ANOTHER SCOTCH l^ATURALIST. 

 By J. A. H. 



In the course of a visit to Scotland some years ago, I was taken to 



see a shoemaker in the town of D , Patterson by name. I 



have often thought since what an excellent picture Dr. Smiles 

 would draw, of the man and his occupations. 



I was so much pleased, and interested with my visit, that I am 

 tempted to give the readers of the " ll^aturalist" a short description 

 of it, as an example of what perseverance and natural ability may 

 achieve. 



We found Patterson, an elderly man, with a shrewd humorous 

 Scotch face, seated in an upper room at his work. His wife left her 

 household occupations to guide us upstairs. She seemed to look on 

 her husband's hobbies, and our interest in them, with a kind of 

 amused toleration, her manner saying, "they maun a' hae' little to 

 do takin' up their heads wi sic rubbish !" Up-stairs were the 

 Naturalist's collections. Insects of various kinds, duly impaled 

 and labelled. A case of butterflies, beautifully preserved, and 

 named. Some were gifts from ^asitors, many exchanges with other 

 collectors, but most had been found by himself as grubs, or larv*. 

 Having no time in the day, he did most of his collecting by the 

 light of a Ian thorn. 



The live part of his menagerie, as Patterson called it, was next 

 exhibited. Grubs, &c., in paper trays, on window-sill, or chair. 



"You would not think!" the naturalist said, admiringly, pointing to 

 a great loathsome caterpillar, "that a crater like that had sense ! 

 He kens me as weel as possible. I neglected his dinner horn- 

 yesterday, and my fine fellow crawled out of his box and up my knee, 

 and there he waited till his wants were attended to." But ferns 

 were our host's latest craze, and we were taken to a little back 

 garden to see these, he meanwhile explaining that the carnations 

 and other pot plants for which he had once been famous at the 

 flower shows, had to give place, as he had only room and time for 

 one pursuit at a time. The ferns were in a rough erection of planks 

 with a few cheap window frames let in. 



"Aye, they're bonny!" said his wife, rather grudgingly, "but I'd 

 like them better if they had a bit floor at the tap." The place was 

 crowded with a fine collection of ferns, in most luxuriant growth. 

 Each one had its history. This one had been brought by a medical 

 student, from a walking tour to the Irish lakes, that Patterson had 

 kept for five years before it had a frond. " I had it up twa or three 

 times," he said, "to throw it avTay, but aye decided to gie it another 

 chance. I tried it wat, and I tried it dry, and a'ways ; at last I put 

 some bit stanea round it, and look at it noo !" Sure enough the 



