54 Transections. 



by the water of the Cairn, is not recorded. Then, as now, dainty- 

 red fish were caught in the College pool, their annual value being 

 given at £80 Scots, while the same fishings bring at present £20 

 sterling. Barnhill, now an excellent farm, yielded only £40 Scots, 

 and after a lapse of two centuries it brings to its laird no less 

 than £240 sterling. The farm of Terregles Town, now a capital 

 piece of land, was let to David Welsh and Andrew Wight in 1682, 

 they paying for it £40 Scots between them. It now yields £718 

 sterling ; the advance in this latter instance being about the 

 greatest that Mr M 'Do wall had met with in the course of his 

 inquiries. 



Some Points of Interest in the Natural History of Islands. — 

 An important paper on the above subject was read by Dr Sharpe, 

 Eccles House. In it a brief epitome was given of the present state of 

 knowledge as regards the natural history of islands. The natural 

 history of St. Paul's Rocks on the equator, midway between Africa 

 and America, was fii-st sketched ; then that of the Galapagos 

 Islands, 600 miles from the South American coast ; and afterwards 

 that of the Sandwich Islands, — the most remote from other lands 

 of all islands of ;iny unusual size — was dwelt on at con- 

 siderable length. The means by which these islands had acquired 

 the animals and plants found in them were discussed. It was 

 pointed out that, although all the islands of the world had a large 

 number of animal and vegetable inhabitants similar to those 

 found elsewhere, they had also a very large number of peculiar 

 forms, some of which were very strange, and like nothing exist- 

 ing elsewhere so far as known. It was considered by the wi-iter that 

 the supposition that these facts might be accounted for by changes 

 having taken place in the distribution of sea and land, so that the 

 islands might formerly have been parts of continents or near to 

 them, was not satisfactory ; and it was concluded that though a 

 great number of the plants and animals that are the same as those 

 found elsewhere had been introduced by natural agencies, such as 

 winds and floating timber, yet this did not explain the existence 

 there of very peculiar animals ; and these suggested that it was 

 possible that in the past there had been more than one geogra- 

 phical centre of the origination of life. The paper ended with a 

 forcible appeal for obtaining knowledge of these facts, which ulti- 

 mately will prove of great importance. But meanwhile these 

 curious creatures are being rapidly more or less completely exter- 



