Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/623

Rh were but fifteen or sixteen shillings per week. His wife helped him efficiently; she bound shoes, and received separate pay for it, but she would often with her own earnings buy bottles for his insects, wood for his bird-cases, powder and shot for his gun. None of his advising friends ever helped him in this way.

His expeditions were often accompanied by dangerous adventures. On one occasion, as he was coming home in the morning, he shot a martin, which fell upon the edge of a cliff. He clambered to the spot, and, just as he was seizing it, it fluttered over, and in trying to grasp it he went over himself. His gun fell out of his hand, and lodged across two rocks. Edward came down upon the gun, smashing it to pieces, but it broke the force of the blow, and probably saved his life. He had descended forty feet, and was wedged in between two rocks, where he remained senseless until with great difficulty he was extricated by two ploughmen and a fisherman, terribly sore and bruised. He got home, but was unable to work, and had to sell more of his collections to meet family expenses.

Shortly after his return from Aberdeen, Edward made the acquaintance of the Rev. James Smith, who lived about eight miles from Banff, and who lent him some books that helped him to ascertain the names of birds, and Mr. Smith also urged him to publish the results of his observations. Edward replied, "I cannot write correctly enough for the publishers." "But you must write," said Smith. "You must note down your observations." Edward objected much, but he nevertheless took to the work, and soon developed unusual descriptive power. He wrote articles, from time to time, for the Banffshire Journal, on various interesting objects, which had the effect of directing general attention to natural-history subjects. Further encouraged by his friend Smith, he began to write for the Zoölogist, giving an account of his discoveries, and of those habits and peculiarities of animals which he had closely observed. At the end of 1855 we find an article of his in the Zoölogist, entitled "Moth hunting, or an Evening in the Wood," and in the following year he commenced in the same periodical a "List of the Birds of Banffshire, accompanied with Anecdotes." This list comprised eight articles, which were received with much favor, yet he never got a farthing for any of his literary contributions!

It is worth while to note how he could write. He printed in the Banffshire Journal an account of a very dangerous adventure he had by getting trapped in the recess of a cliff from which there seemed to be no possibility of escape in any direction. He says: "I sat down to consider what was next to be done. While thus resting, I observed a falcon (Falco peregrinus) sailing slowly and steadily along, bearing something large in his talons. On he came, seemingly unconscious of my presence, and alighted on a ledge only a few yards from where I sat. I now saw that the object he carried was a