Grant noticed my
small discovery in his excellent memoir on Flustra.
I was also a member of the Royal Medical Society, and attended
pretty regularly; but as the subjects were exclusively medical, I
did not much care about them. Much rubbish was talked there, but
there were some good speakers, of whom the best was the present
Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth. 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.
Mr. Leonard Horner also took me once to a meeting of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, where I saw Sir Walter Scott in the chair
as President, and he apologised to the meeting as not feeling
fitted for such a position. I looked at him and at the whole
scene with some awe and reverence, and I think it was owing to
this visit during my youth, and to my having attended the Royal
Medical Society, that I felt the honour of being elected a few
years ago an honorary member of both these Societies, more than
any other similar honour.
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