HIS MARRIAGE 
61 
leaving Harris, he had married Marion M‘Caskill, 
who, as I have already mentioned, was a younger 
sister of his uncle’s wife. His return to Edinburgh 
no doubt followed soon after that event, and the 
office of Assistant to Professor Jamieson, which he 
then obtained, with advantages resulting from it, 
not only provided the means of subsistence for 
himself and his household, probably in a very 
modest way, but afforded important opportunities 
for further cultivating and extending his knowledge 
of natural science. Important as these oppor¬ 
tunities were, however, and the advantages derived 
from them, he had no doubt found that the duties 
of his position restricted too much his efforts for 
extending his knowledge of living Nature in a wider 
range than had hitherto been open to him. After 
some years, therefore, he resigned his appointment 
under Professor Jamieson, and extended his 
wanderings far and wide, for the purpose of still 
further enlarging his knowledge of the habits and 
lives of his feathered friends. He supported him¬ 
self, apparently, by contributions to scientific 
periodicals, compilations, and other miscellaneous 
literary work connected with natural science. 
