REPORTS ON EXCURSIONS. 333 



Reports on Excursions. 



Toward, 7th September, 1901. — This excursion was a joint 

 one with that of the Andersonian Naturalists' Society, and was 

 further augmented by a contingent from the Greenock Natural 

 History Club. The party, seventeen in all, under the leader- 

 ship of Miss S. B. Robbie, travelled, via Gourock, to Toward 

 on a fine afternoon, and proceeded to Castle Toward, permission 

 to visit which had kindly been granted by the owner of the 

 estate. The first object of interest within the grounds was the 

 old ruined castle once the seat of the Chief of the Lamonts. 

 Like many other Scottish castles, it is said to have been 

 visited by Queen Mary, who rode from Dunoon, whose castle 

 she had also honoured with her presence. In 1646 the Camp- 

 bells made a raid on Castle Toward, carried off the Lamonts, 

 and hanged them on an ash tree in the kirkyard at Dunoon. 

 Tradition says that " the Lord from heaven did declare His 

 wrath and displeasure," on account of this cruel deed, " by 

 striking the said tree immediately thereafter, so that the whole 

 leaves fell from it, and the tree withered, which, being cut 

 down, there sprang out of the very heart of the root thereof a 

 spring like unto blood popling up, and that for several years, 

 till the said murderers or their favourites did cause howk out 

 the root." The old castle was burned at the time of the raid 

 by the Marquis of Argyll, who was afterwards made to suffer 

 for so doing, this deed in fact forming part of his indictment at 

 his trial, which ended in his death. 



The chief feature of the Castle Toward estate is the variety 

 and fine quality of its timber. The late Mr. Kirkman Finlay, 

 who purchased this estate, planted five million trees, covering 

 nine hundred acres, in Dunoon Parish, besides thirty acres in 

 the Parish of Inverchaolin, into which the lands of Castle 

 Toward extend. Fine examples of nearly all our deciduous 

 trees were seen — the One-leaved Ash, Magnolia, Walnut, Norway 

 and Japanese Maples, and true Plane trees were especially 

 interesting. Among shrubs, the Japanese Quince in fruit, the 



