80 Field MeMings. 



But less mythical personages than John of Braidislee have hunted 

 othei" game in Durisdeer. After Wallace had relieved Sir William 

 Douglas at Sanquhar Castle, " through Durisdeer he took the 

 gainest gate," as Blind Harry tells us, towards Lochmaben ; and 

 we are further iiiformed that he captured the Castles of Duiisdeer, 

 Enoch, and Tibbers from the English. 



" Thir three captains he sticked in that stound, 

 Of Durisdeer, Enneth, and Tybristoun. " 



The naturalists, after quitting the churchyard, proceeded along 

 the Wall Pass, a wild mountain path conducting direct from the 

 village to Crawford Muir, a distance of about five or six miles. 

 On the other side of a small stream which steals, scarcely visible, 

 at the foot of the hollow, there are remains of a Roman camp, and 

 traces of a Roman road which led on to Crawford Muir, and was 

 there connected with the greater road which the Romans had 

 formed into Annandale. 



These objects of antiquarian interest having been inspected, a 

 Business Meeting of the Society was held — Dr Gilchrist presiding 

 — when Mrs Gilchrist was proposed and admitted a member, and 

 some arrangements were made relative to the intended visit of the 

 Cryptogamic Society to Dumfries. Thereafter the bulk of the 

 party returned to the village, and drove along Dalveen Pass ; a 

 few others adhered to the Wall Pass, intending to rejoin their 

 friends at the top of Dalveen. The sole of the Wall Pass is a 

 difficult but not dangerous cart-road. For a portion of the way 

 it is quite soft and turfy under foot; for another portion it is 

 exceedingly stony ; for the rest it forms the bed of a stream after 

 rain, and you are obliged to pick your steps through bits of 

 spongy moor. On the right hand side, going towards Lanark- 

 shire, it was observed that the hills are covered with heather, and 

 that there is little or none visible on the hills to the left ; but 

 when the march between the two counties is reached there is 

 plenty on both sides, and the country opens upon Crawford Muir. 

 The boundary line at this point is also the watershed. On one 

 side of a fence you have the drainage percolating towards the 

 streams that feed the Nith, and on the other side a considerable 

 burn brawling over a bed of Silurian to its j unction with the Daer, 

 which is a famous trouting stream, and is maintained by some to be 

 the true source of the river Clyde, since it is larger than the Clyde 

 burn, which falls into it, not it into the Clyde. Pursuing their 



