ALEXANDER WILSON. 
23 
in abstraction or reverie, and delighted in wliat may 
be termed day dreams. So great was the pleasure 
enjoyed in such fancies, that he would frequently 
retire to bed during the day, with the hope of 
following up these impressions. His solitary musing 
rambles were still continued, and often extended to 
the residence of his father and family, or to the 
banks of his favourite Calder ; and as the game- 
laws were then not so strict as at present, a gun 
was his frequent companion, and poaching some- 
times the result. To such expeditions may be 
assigned his first lessons at discriminating various 
sorts of game, both here and on the American 
Continent. 
Wilson, at this period, while on a visit to his 
brother-in-law, William Duncan, at Qucensferry 
on the Forth, agreed to accompany him on a busi- 
ness excursion to some of the eastern districts of 
Scotland, the greatest distance he had travelled from 
the place of his hirth. It was during this journey 
that the new scenes and variety of incident met 
with, induced him to form the notion of becoming 
a travelling-merchant or packman , a change which 
he esteemed preferable to the irksome drudgery of 
the loom; and being assisted by kind friends, he 
was, as he informs us, “ fitted up with a proper 
budget, consisting of silks, muslins, prints, &c. &c. 
for the accommodation of those good people who 
may prove his customers,” and with a light heart 
he commenced his new and more varied career, 
sanguine of success, 
