id="FNanchor_1_1"/>[1] The Green is now covered with houses, factories, and the Aberdeen Railway Station,—its warehouses, sidings, and station rooms. A very fine bridge has been erected over the Green, now forming part of Union Street; the Palace Hotel overlooking the railway station and the surrounding buildings.

Thomas Edward was brought up in his parents’ house in the Green, such as it was sixty years ago. It is difficult to describe how he became a naturalist. He himself says he could never tell. Various influences determine the direction of a boy’s likings and dislikings. Boys who live in the country are usually fond of birds and bird-nesting; just as girls who live at home are fond of dolls and doll-keeping. But this boy had more than the ordinary tendency to like living things. He wished to live amongst them. He made pets of them; and desired to have them constantly about him.

From his birth he was difficult to manage. His mother said of him that he was the worst child she had ever nursed. He was never a moment at rest. His feet and legs seemed to be set on springs. When only about four months old, he leapt from his mother’s arms, in the vain endeavour to catch some flies buzzing in the window. She clutched him by his long clothes, and saved him from falling to the ground. He began to walk when he was scarce ten months old, and screamed when any one ventured to touch him. And thus he went on, observing and examining,—as full of liking for living things as he was when he tried to grasp the flies in the window at Gosport.

When afterwards asked about the origin of his love for Natural History, he said, “I suppose it must have originated in the same internal impulse which prompted me to catch those flies in the window. This unseen something—this double being, or call it what you will—inherent in us all, whether used for good or evil, which stimulated the unconscious babe to get at, no doubt, the first living animals he had ever seen, at length grew in the man into an irresistible and unconquerable passion, and engendered in him an insatiable longing for, and earnest desire to be always amongst such things. This is the only reason I can give for becoming a lover of Nature. I know of none other.”

While living at Kettle, the child began to walk. He made friends with the cats and dogs about the house. He was soon able to toddle out of doors. At first, he wished to cultivate the acquaintance of the cocks and hens and ducks, of which the village was full. But they always ran away before he could get up to them and caress them.

There was, however, another, and a much more dangerous creature, whose acquaintance he sought to make. This was a sow called Bet, with a litter of pigs. Whenever he was missing, he was found looking in at the pigs. He could not climb over the paling, but could merely look through the splits.

The sow was known to be ferocious, and she was most so when she had a litter of pigs. Edward’s mother was afraid lest the sow should injure him by biting his hands or face through the bars of the cruive.[2] Therefore she warned him not to go near the beast. But her warnings were disregarded. When she asked, “Where’s Tam?” the answer invariably was, “Oh! he’s awa wi’ the pigs.”