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lecture in Marisclial College, Aberdeen, where he continued to study 
his favourite subjects and to teach botany until 1853, when he was 
selected by the Crown as the successor to the Bev. Wm. Xlincks, 
F.L.S., in the chair of Natural History in Queen’s College, Cork. 
The charming flora and fauna of Aberdeen, which had been 
laboriously worked for years by Dr Dickie, who had indicated the 
spots where the most interesting specimens were to be met with, was 
open and ready for further examination by the more daring and 
speculative spirit of Thomson. It was not long before a visit to his 
study possessed the greatest attractions and charms. Around the 
room, on shelves, tables, and floor alike, there lay, in what would 
have seemed to a casual observer the most grotesque confusion, the 
treasures of description and illustration of the most eminent natur- 
alists of the day and of former times. The shelves and mantelpiece 
were, shortly, crowded with selected and neatly preserved specimens 
of Polyzoa and sertularian zoophytes taken in the neighbourhood, 
picked off the fishermen’s lines, or dredged up by Thomson him- 
self ; here and there lay heaps of plants already in their places in 
the herbarium, or in process of preparation for being preserved; and, 
what was more charming than all, there were bowls and dishes and 
aquaria of all kinds, containing the actual living specimens which 
were being examined, and of which the characters were rendered 
permanent by the naturalist-artist himself in the most beautifully 
executed drawings. Amidst all these signs of true scientific work 
there were indications of the enjoyment which the tenant of this 
sanctum himself derived from indulging in his natural tastes. The 
specimens of the most elegant forms were always in the foreground ; 
there never failed to be seen two or three rare or beautiful flowers, 
made ten times more beautiful than ordinary by the tasteful way in 
which they were displayed, whilst the newest photographs or 
sketches of the glens or other scenery in the neighbourhood found 
a home on any unoccupied spots there chanced to be on the walls. 
Those who had the privilege of witnessing the progress of this 
happy life, of noticing how the varying forms of these elegant 
sertularians gradually proclaimed their mode of development, how 
their myriad medusoids were produced, at length set free, and then 
settled in life, under the observation of the loving intruder into 
Xheir inner life, could not but wonder how time was obtained for all 
