Dr. Grant took me occasionally to the meetings of the Wernerian Society, where various papers on natural history were read, discussed, and afterwards published in the 'Transactions.' I heard Audubon deliver there some interesting discourses on the habits of N. American birds, sneering somewhat unjustly at Waterton. By the way, a negro lived in Edinburgh, who had travelled with Waterton, and gained his livelihood by stuffing birds, which he did excellently: he gave me lessons for payment, and I used often to sit with him, for he was a very pleasant and intelligent man.

I have attempted to write the following account of myself, as if I were a dead man in another world looking back at my own life. Nor have I found this difficul…

Fitz-Roy's temper was a most unfortunate one. It was usually worst in the early morning, and with his eagle eye he could generally detect something amiss about…

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which…

Men of science in former ages worked in secret, and instead of publishing their discoveries, taught them in secret to carefully selected pupils.

A people's memory is history. A people without a history can grow neither wiser nor better.

Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.