He was a night-bird, this Thomas Edward; and as in Scotland the twilight lasts till ten in the evening and the day dawns at three in the morning, there were some hours out of the twenty-four which he could employ, and did employ, in his rambles. At twenty-three he fell in love with a pretty girl, and married her, his income being still but nine and sixpence a week. His married life was a happy one, for his wife had the good sense to make no opposition to his darling pursuits, and let him fill their cottage and garden with as many creatures as he chose, not even scolding him for his very frequent absences during the night. Some one asked her recently about this, and her reply was:-- "Weel, he took such an interest in beasts that I didna compleen. Shoemakers were then a very drucken set, but his beasts keepit him frae them. My mon's been a sober mon all his life, and he never negleckit his wark. Sae I let him be."-- Children were born to them, eleven in all, and yet he found time to learn to write, to read some books, and to increase constantly his knowledge of nature. In order to procure specimens for his collection, he bought an old shot-gun for a sum equal to about a dollar,--such a battered old piece that he had to tie the barrel to the stock with a piece of string. A cow's horn served for his powder; he measured his charge with a tobacco pipe, and carried his shot in a paper-bag. About nine in the evening, carrying his supper with him, he would start out and search the country round for animals and rare plants as long as he could see; then eat his supper and lie down and sleep till the light returned, when he would continue his hunting till it was time for work. Many a fight he had in the darkness with badgers and pole-cats. When he had thus been employed eight or nine years, his collection contained two thousand specimens of animals and two thousand plants, all nicely arranged in three hundred cases made with his own hands. Upon this collection he had founded hopes of getting money upon which to pursue his studies more extensively. So he took it to Aberdeen, six cart loads in all, accompanied by the whole family,--wife and five children. It needs scarcely to be said that his collection did not succeed, and he was obliged to sell the fruit of nine years' labor for twenty pounds. Nothing daunted, he returned to his cobbler's stall, and began again to collect, occasionally encouraged by a neighboring naturalist, and sometimes getting a little money for a rare specimen. Often he tried to procure employment as a naturalist, but unsuccessfully, and as late as 1875 we find him writing thus:--