_Tuesday, December 12._ This morning at ten I went to the house of Dr. Brewster, whom I found writing in a large room with several fine pictures on the walls. He received me very kindly, and in a few minutes I began reading my paper on the habits of the Carrion Crow, _Vultur atratus_. About midway my nervousness affected my respiration; I paused a moment, and he was good enough to say it was highly interesting. I resumed, and went on to the end, much to my relief. He who has been brought up an auctioneer, or on the boards of some theatre, with all the knowledge of the proper usage of the voice, and all the _aplomb_ such a life would give, knows nothing of the feelings of bashfulness which agitated me, a man who never looked into an English grammar and who has forgotten most of what he learned in French and Spanish ones--a man who has always felt awkward and shy in the presence of a stranger--a man habituated to ramble alone, with his thoughts usually bent on the beauties of Nature herself--this man, _me_, to be seated opposite Dr. Brewster in Edinburgh, reading one of my puny efforts at describing habits of birds that none but an Almighty Creator can ever know, was ridiculously absurd in my estimation, during all the time; besides, I also felt the penetrating looks and keen observation of the learned man before me, so that the cold sweat started from me. As I wiped my forehead on finishing my paper, a large black dog came in, caressed his master, and made a merciful diversion, and as my agitation gradually subsided I was able to talk with Dr. Brewster and was afterwards introduced to his lady, who put me soon at my ease, and told me I was to be introduced to Sir Walter Scott on Monday next at the Royal Academy. Poor me!--far from Sir Walter I could talk to him; hundreds of times have I spoken to him quite loudly in the woods, as I looked on the silvery streamlets, or the dense swamps, or the noble Ohio, or on mountains losing their peaks in gray mists. How many times have I longed for him to come to my beloved country, that he might describe, as no one else ever can, the stream, the swamp, the river, the mountain, for the sake of future ages. A century hence they will not be here as I see them, Nature will have been robbed of many brilliant charms, the rivers will be tormented and turned astray from their primitive courses, the hills will be levelled with the swamps, and perhaps the swamps will have become a mound surmounted by a fortress of a thousand guns. Scarce a magnolia will Louisiana possess, the timid Deer will exist nowhere, fish will no longer abound in the rivers, the Eagle scarce ever alight, and these millions of lovely songsters be driven away or slain by man. Without Sir Walter Scott these beauties must perish unknown to the world. To the great and good man himself I can never say this, therefore he can never know it, or my feelings towards him--but if he did? What have I to say more than a world of others who all admire