MEETING 
OF THE 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT EDINBURGH, 
JULY 30, 1850, 
ORNITHOLOGY OF SECTION D. . 
Iv Scotland, Ornithology has not advanced so r&pidly of late as in 
England. In Edinburgh, there are no private collections of any 
importance; and since the decease of John Wilson the Janitor of 
the University, as well as the preserver of the objects of Natural 
History for the Museum, there has been much less interest taken in 
Zoology by the young men attending the classes. Wilson’s stuffing 
Tooms were in the square of the Old College, where he possessed a 
Small collection of neatly mounted specimens of British and Foreign 
binds ; it was rich in the British Game and Birds of Prey, and be- 
Sides -some showy foreign birds set up for attraction, he possessed 
Some of great rarity (such as Musophaga gigantea, &e.), which, at 
the sale of hig collection, came into our possession. These rooms, 
from hig official intercourse with the students, were almost always 
pen and were very attractive; and as lessons in preparing animals 
and birds was one of the Janitor’s privileges, there was frequently 
@ large attendance; and many went away, carrying with them the 
Nowledge to prepare, and bearing the seeds of a practical zoology 
and of a love for nature. The students haying these objects con- 
Stantly before them, often seeing the specimens arrive fresh from 
the country or from the sea, imbibed an interest, which made them 
naturalists without their knowing it; some of them are now pro- 
“sors; some men of eminence in science; some of them enlight- 
ened travellers and in one of the papers read before the section, 
