Whenever he indicated an intention of penetrating a hedge or leaping a wall, she immediately interfered. The hedge would tear his clothes, and she could not accompany him in jumping dykes. He demurred, and said, that if he went across, he would “come back again.” But that did not suit her purpose, and she would not let him go. As evening approached, she said, “We’ll awa back noo.” He protested that he would rather stay out. “No, no,” said she, “I’m no gaun intill a hole like a wild beast; and, besides, the nicht air would kill me.” In fact, as he afterwards observed, “he had fallen into the hands of the Philistines.”
TRAPS AT TARLAIR.
Edward still took pleasure in wandering along the coast, and surveying the scenes of his former exploits. One day he took a friend round to Tarlair, to look at the rock from which he had fallen. Standing on the high ground above the shore, and looking down upon the rock-pools beneath the promontory, he observed: “I set many of my traps down there. I filled them with seaweed, and sometimes with a piece of dead fish. The sea came in and filled my traps, and sometimes brought in many rare Crustacea. I set my traps along the coast for about ten miles, from Portsoy to Melrose Head. Many a time have I scrambled amongst these rocks. But when I took ill, and the inflammation went to my brain, I had to leave all my traps, and there they are still.”
“What a fine chance that will be for some future Ichthyologist,” said his friend; “he will find the traps ready-made, and perhaps full of new species of crustaceans!” “Weel,” said Edward, “it may be sae; but I dinna think there’ll be sic a feel as me for mony a lang year to come!”
Although he had long given up searching along shore for new specimens of Fish, Crustaceans, or Molluscs, yet he had still another discovery to announce. There was a new fish remaining in his possession which had been entirely lost sight of. He had taken it in 1868, whilst searching amongst the rock-pools at the Links. He kept it alive for two days, and when it died he put it into a bottle, intending to send it to Mr. Couch; but somehow or other the bottle got lost, and, though he turned the house almost upside down, he could never find it.
THE NILSSON’S GOBY.
Only about a year ago, while turning over his papers to find the letters referred to in the preceding pages, he found the bottle containing the new fish at the bottom of the box. How great was his delight! But what was he to do with it? Mr. Couch was dead, all his fish friends were dead, and he did not know to whom to apply, to name the new fish. But as he was about to proceed to Aberdeen to see Mr. Reid, who was so kind as to offer to paint his portrait, he took the fish with him. Mr. Reid procured an introduction for him, through Dean of Guild Walker, to Professor Nicol of Marischal College. The Professor did not at first recognise the fish, but on referring to his works on Ichthyology, he found that it was a specimen of Nilsson’s Goby, a species not before known to have been taken in British seas.
Notwithstanding the thousands of specimens and the hundreds of cases that Edward had been obliged to part with during his successive illnesses,[58] he has still sixty cases filled with about two thousand specimens of natural objects. During his lifetime he has made about five hundred cases with no other tools than his shoemaker’s knife and hammer, and a saw; and he papered, painted, and glazed them all himself.
EDWARD’S DISCOVERIES.
As to the number of different species that he has accumulated during thirty years of incessant toil, it is of course impossible to form an estimate, as he never kept a log-book; but some idea of his persevering labours may be formed from the list of Banffshire Fauna annexed to this volume.