A YEAR’S RESIDENCE IN THE HEBRIDES 25 
August (the date of his return to Aberdeen) was 
written; and how interesting the details of that 
second volume would have been, whether the time 
was spent in carrying out the original plan, or 
in a continued “residence and travel” among the 
Western Islands. How much these details would 
have revealed had the record of them, made from 
day to day as in the case of Yol. I., been still in 
existence. It would have shown how his know- 
leged of Nature was being constantly enlarged, how 
natural science was becoming more and more the 
all-engrossing pursuit with him, and with what 
untiring energy and zeal, at the cost of much 
physical discomfort and endurance, he had persist¬ 
ently continued that pursuit. 
During the whole of the year which elapsed 
between his departure from Aberdeen on 3rd 
August 1817 and his return to it on 13th August 
1818, his mind and time must have been almost 
exclusively occupied with his scientific pursuits in 
direct contact with Nature—little if any thought 
being given to medicine; and probably he found, 
when again settled down to his studies in Aberdeen, 
that his zeal for the continued prosecution of medi¬ 
cine had considerably abated. 
In the preface to the Rapacious Birds already 
referred to, he says :— 
“ The fascination of those pursuits (botany and 
zoology) were such that, after studying medicine 
for nearly five years, during part of which time 
