The Autobiography of Charles Darwin | Page 8

speculation being so large to the facts given.
Drs. Grant and Coldstream attended much to marine Zoology, and I
often accompanied the former to collect animals in the tidal pools,
which I dissected as well as I could. I also became friends with some of
the Newhaven fishermen, and sometimes accompanied them when they
trawled for oysters, and thus got many specimens. But from not having
had any regular practice in dissection, and from possessing only a
wretched microscope, my attempts were very poor. Nevertheless I
made one interesting little discovery, and read, about the beginning of
the year 1826, a short paper on the subject before the Plinian Society.
This was that the so-called ova of Flustra had the power of independent
movement by means of cilia, and were in fact larvae. In another short
paper I showed that the little globular bodies which had been supposed
to be the young state of Fucus loreus were the egg-cases of the
wormlike Pontobdella muricata.
The Plinian Society was encouraged and, I believe, founded by
Professor Jameson: it consisted of students and met in an underground
room in the University for the sake of reading papers on natural science

and discussing them. I used regularly to attend, and the meetings had a
good effect on me in stimulating my zeal and giving me new congenial
acquaintances. One evening a poor young man got up, and after
stammering for a prodigious length of time, blushing crimson, he at last
slowly got out the words, "Mr. President, I have forgotten what I was
going to say." The poor fellow looked quite overwhelmed, and all the
members were so surprised that no one could think of a word to say to
cover his confusion. The papers which were read to our little society
were not printed, so that I had not the satisfaction of seeing my paper in
print; but I believe Dr. Grant noticed my small discovery in his
excellent memoir on Flustra.
I was also a member of the Royal Medical Society, and attended pretty
regularly; but as the subjects were exclusively medical, I did not much
care about them. Much rubbish was talked there, but there were some
good speakers, of whom the best was the present Sir J.
Kay-Shuttleworth. Dr. Grant took me occasionally to the meetings of
the Wernerian Society, where various papers on natural history were
read, discussed, and afterwards published in the 'Transactions.' I heard
Audubon deliver there some interesting discourses on the habits of N.
American birds, sneering somewhat unjustly at Waterton. By the way,
a negro lived in Edinburgh, who had travelled with Waterton, and
gained his livelihood by stuffing birds, which he did excellently: he
gave me lessons for payment, and I used often to sit with him, for he
was a very pleasant and intelligent man.
Mr. Leonard Horner also took me once to a meeting of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, where I saw Sir Walter Scott in the chair as
President, and he apologised to the meeting as not feeling fitted for
such a position. I looked at him and at the whole scene with some awe
and reverence, and I think it was owing to this visit during my youth,
and to my having attended the Royal Medical Society, that I felt the
honour of being elected a few years ago an honorary member of both
these Societies, more than any other similar honour. If I had been told
at that time that I should one day have been thus honoured, I declare
that I should have thought it as ridiculous and improbable, as if I had
been told that I should be elected King of England.
During my second year at Edinburgh I attended --'s lectures on
Geology and Zoology, but they were incredibly dull. The sole effect

they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to
read a book on Geology, or in any way to study the science. Yet I feel
sure that I was prepared for a philosophical treatment of the subject; for
an old Mr. Cotton in Shropshire, who knew a good deal about rocks,
had pointed out to me two or three years previously a well-known large
erratic boulder in the town of Shrewsbury, called the "bell-stone"; he
told me that there was no rock of the same kind nearer than
Cumberland or Scotland, and he solemnly assured me that the world
would come to an end before any one would be able to explain how this
stone came where it now lay. This produced a deep impression on me,
and I meditated over this wonderful stone. So that I felt the keenest
delight when I first read of the action of icebergs in transporting
boulders, and I gloried in the