DEVORGILLA BALIOL AND OLD BRIDGE OF DuMFRIES. 125 
Barbour was one of the moving spirits, if not the moving spirit, | 
in preserving the Old Bridge to them. Mr M‘Diarmid mentioned 
in the course of a discussion about the builder of the Old Bridge 
that Mr Cosmo Innes appeared to hold at that time the opinion 
that no bridge of this kind could have been built by builders of 
the period of Devorgilla. Mr M‘Diarmid, however, preferred 
the old tradition, and although tradition did not count for every- 
thing it counted for a good deal in a matter like this, and he 
thought that the statement referred to that no builders could have 
erected buildings of that kind did not carry very much weight, 
in view of the character of Sweetheart Abbey and other buildings 
of that period. The ancient date of the bridge was largely 
borne out by various documents, which had been translated by 
Dr Chinnock, and which would appear in a future volume of the 
transactions. He hoped that at some future time Mr Barbour 
would deal with another very interesting subject, the old streets 
of Dumfries. They did not know very much of these. When 
some alterations were being made at Mr Kelly’s shop in Friars’ 
Vennel, the workmen came on some pavements behind the shop, 
which was supposed by some to be the old Friars’ Vennel. He 
did know whether that was correct or not, but it would be very 
interesting to clear up questions as to which were the old streets 
of Dumfries. In his early days he knew many old houses 
in Friars’ Vennel, and one of the oldest stood on the site of 
the building at the west corner of Irish Street and Friars’ 
Vennel, with a projecting porch-way, and which was a butcher’s 
shop in those days. There were a number of other very 
old buildings, which seemed to show that that was then the 
main street to the river, and the position of the old chimney of 
the monastery also pointed to that. 
Birp Notes. By Mr R. Service, M.B.O.U., Janefield, 
Duntfries. 
Mr R. Service gave an address of considerable interest on 
some incidents in bird life during the past year. He said that 
the season of 1907 was a very peculiar one from the meteorologi- 
cal point of view. It was rare indeed that they experienced such 
a long-continued period of low temperatures with extremely 
humid air, and these circumstances were not without strong 
