26 ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY LIFE [oh. ii. 
I officiated as dissector to the Lecturer on Anatomy 
at Marischal College, I resolved to relinquish it 
and devote my attention exclusively to natural 
history.” 
At what time this resolution was definitely 
formed and began to be acted on does not appear, 
but probably it had not been long after the resump¬ 
tion of his other studies on his return to Aberdeen 
on 13th August 1818. Yet it is not unlikely that 
from feelings of respect and affection for his friend 
and teacher, Dr Barclay, he had continued to keep 
up a warm friendly connection with him as his pupil 
or otherwise. 
I cannot doubt, however, that during the year 
which followed his return, he had, in co-operation 
with his friend, William Craigie, devoted himself 
with so much zeal to the study of botany and 
zoology, that little time or room for thought was 
left for the further study of medicine. 
In September 1819 he devised an extraordinary 
plan for a further extension of his knowledge of 
Nature in its various aspects. This plan was to 
walk all the way from Aberdeen to London, in 
order to see the British Museum and other institu¬ 
tions containing objects of special interest to him, 
and to acquire such further knowledge of Nature as 
would result from his observations in the course of 
the journey. So he set out on that expedition, he 
tells us in his preface to the Rapacious Birds , with 
his journal and Smith’s Flora Britannica on his 
back. He formed his plan for it at its commence- 
