THE ADDER IN SOLWAV 155 



year, thus writes to me under date igth March 1901 : 

 " In reply to your inquiry about the number of adders 

 I have killed on this farm well, as honestly as I can state, 

 and I kept a careful account every year, there were about 

 1400 in all. The most for one year was nearly a hundred, 

 and we are nearly forty years here. I have not seen any 

 this year yet, but I have killed them in every month of the 

 year." 



A curious but not infrequent resort of the adder in 

 bygone years was the roofs of thatched houses. The march 

 of improvement has almost abolished the use of thatch for 

 dwelling-houses. Over thirty years ago the Gray Horse 

 Inn premises, in the centre of Dumfries, were burned down. 

 The house was notable as containing a portion of the 

 kitchen of the old Greyfriars' Monastery, where Robert 

 Bruce made his historic assault on the Comyn. I well 

 remember seeing a couple of adult adders, that had escaped 

 from the burning thatch, killed by the onlookers. 



In my possession is a MS. volume of extracts of 

 paragraphs, etc., relating to natural history matters, copied 

 by myself from the files of the old " Dumfries Courier," a 

 famous naturalist, John M'Diarmid, having occupied the 

 editorial chair of that newspaper for a very lengthy period. 

 A selection of these interesting old paragraphs may here be 

 cited. Under date 3ist October 1815, it is stated: "At 

 the time of the late extraordinary flood [which happened on 

 26th September 1815 R. S.], whilst the people at Borland, 

 in the parish of Balmaghie, were dragging corn off a field 

 which was overflowed by the river Dee, they met with a 

 number of adders, most of which had fled for refuge to the 

 floating sheaves. No less than sixteen were killed. They 

 had no doubt been drawn from their winter retreats in the 

 adjoining meadow, where they are so plentiful that some 

 time ago a man who was employed there in making a ditch 

 in the winter season, on turning up a hillock found under 

 it fourteen of different sizes, but in somewhat of a torpid 

 state." 



Here is another paragraph from the " Courier " of I3th 

 March 1821 : "On Saturday last, as James Johnstone, peat- 

 man, was levelling moss on the estate of Sir Robert Grierson 



