three volumes of his voyages, and from the Countess of Morton four beautiful Pheasants and a basket of rare hot-house flowers. * * * * * _Edinburgh, January 1, 1827, Monday._[110] A Happy New Year to you, my book. Bless me! how fair you look this very cold day. Which way, pray, are you travelling? Travelling wherever chance or circumstance may lead you? Well, I will take you for my companion, and we will talk together on all kinds of subjects, and you will help me to remember, for my memory is bad, very bad. I never can recollect the name of an enemy, for instance; it is only my friends whom I can remember, and to write down somewhat of their kind treatment of me is a delight I love to enjoy. _January 6, Saturday._ Ever since the first day of this month I have been most closely engaged at my painting of the "Pheasants Attacked by a Fox." I have, however, spent another day and night at Dalmahoy. I have written a long paper for the Wernerian Society on the habits of Alligators, and am always very weary at night. _January 7._ I keep at my painting closely, and for a wonder was visited by Dr. Bridges. I have labored hard, but my work is bad; some inward feeling tells me when it is good. No one, I think, paints in my method; I, who have never studied but by piecemeal, form my pictures according to my ways of study. For instance, I am now working on a Fox; I take one neatly killed, put him up with wires, and when satisfied of the truth of the position, I take my palette and work as rapidly as possible; the same with my birds. If practicable, I finish the bird at one sitting,--often, it is true, of fourteen hours,--so that I think they are correct, both in detail and composition. _Monday, 8th._ I rose this morning two and a half hours before day, and wrote much before breakfast. Thanks to my good spirit not a soul called upon me this day, and I brushed away without losing a moment of the precious light of these short days. This evening I saw my plate of the Wild Turkey, and went to hear Captain Basil Hall lecture at the Royal Society on the Trade Winds. The practical as well as theoretical knowledge of this learned man rendered this a most valuable evening to me. I was introduced to Mr. Perceval, the son of the King of England's Secretary of State,[111] who was shamefully and barbarously murdered some years since. _Tuesday, 9th._ Mr. Hays, the Dalmahoy antiquarian, called on me, and brought me a copy of Bewick's "Quadrupeds." At eight this evening I went to the Society of Arts, of which I have been elected a member. Here I saw a capital air-gun, and a steam-carriage in full motion; but _I_ had to operate, and showed my manner of putting up my birds with wires, and I positively shook so that I feared I should not be able to proceed to the termination; this bashfulness is dreadful, how am I ever to overcome it?