This new field he began to cultivate in a novel and ingenious way.  He got together all the old broken pails, pots, pans, and kettles he could find in the neighbourhood, filled them with straw or bits of rag, and then sank them with a heavy stone into the rocky pools that abound along that weather-beaten coast.  A rope was tied to one end, by which he could raise them again; and once a month he used to go his rounds to visit these very primitive but effectual sea-traps.  Lots of living things had meanwhile congregated in the safe nests thus provided for them, and Edward sorted them all over, taking home with him all the newer or more valuable specimens.  In this way he was enabled to make several additions to our knowledge of the living things that inhabit the sea off the north-east coast of Scotland.

The fishermen also helped him not a little, by giving him many rare kinds of fish or refuse from their nets, which he duly examined and classified.  As a rule, the hardy men who go on the smacks have a profound contempt for natural history, and will not be tempted, even by offers of money, to assist those whom they consider as half-daft gentlefolk in what seems to them a perfectly useless and almost childish amusement.  But it was different with Tam Edward, the strange shoemaker whom they all knew so well; if he wanted fish or rubbish for his neat collection in the home-made glass cases, why, of course he could have them, and welcome.  So they brought him rare sand-suckers, and blue-striped wrasse, and saury pike, and gigantic cuttle-fish, four feet long, to his heart’s content.  Edward’s daughters were now also old enough to help him in his scientific studies.  They used to watch for the clearing of the nets, and pick out of the refuse whatever they thought would interest or please their father.  But the fish themselves were Edward’s greatest helpers and assistants.  As Dr. Smiles quaintly puts it, they were the best of all possible dredgers.  His daughters used to secure him as many stomachs as possible, and from their contents he picked out an immense number of beautiful and valuable specimens.  The bill of fare of the cod alone comprised an incredible variety of small crabs, shells, shrimps, sea-mice, star-fish, jelly-fish, sea anemones, eggs, and zoophytes.  All these went to swell Edward’s new collection of marine animals.

To identify and name so many small and little-known creatures was a very difficult task for the poor shoemaker, with so few books, and no opportunities for visiting museums and learned societies.  But his industry and ingenuity managed to surmount all obstacles.  Naturalists everywhere are very willing to aid and instruct one another; especially are the highest authorities almost always eager to give every help and encouragement in their power to local amateurs.  Edward used to wait till he had collected a batch of specimens of a single class or order, and then he would send them by post to learned men in different parts of