TORRS WARREN. 5r 
in the shell mounds of the north of Ireland, which are being accum- 
ulated even at the present time. An occasional much-decayed 
bone may be laid bare, but I know of no accumulations of bones, 
nor of any articles having been got made of bone, horn, wood, or 
leather. Gold articles appear to be absent as well as silver ones, 
with the exception of coins and some “‘inlaying” in that metal. 
At page 88 of the Catalogue of the National Museum of 
Antiquities of Scotland occurs the following :—‘ The close cor- 
respondence in general character of the two collections, from 
Glenluce Sands [Torrs Warren] in the south-west and from the 
Culbin Sands in the north-east of Scotland, is very remarkable, 
but the differences in detail are even more striking.” Doubtless 
the ‘‘differences” might be less so, had everything got at these 
two famous localities found its way into the museum, and it is to 
be hoped they yet may. 
The Torrs Warren compares almost item for item with Ayrshire 
in the matter of hammer stones, polishers, worked flints, and stone 
whorls ; gas coal articles are commoner in Ayrshire. There are, 
perhaps, as many “urn” fragments in Ayrshire as in the Torrs, 
but they seldom show any ornamentation; green-glazed wheel- 
made pottery is equally common at both places. The ew 
ground pottery, which might be called the Huts Pottery, is all but 
absent in Ayrshire; but in other antiques the Ayrshire sands are 
comparatively barren compared with those of the Torrs, the number 
of bits of coins, for instance, got in Ayrshire may be counted on 
the fingers, the oldest one I have found on the sands of the latter 
place being an Arabic coin of the ninth century. 
The sands of the Torrs are said to be moving at a greater rate 
at the present time than they were formerly, and certainly one 
sees a large area of vegetation being covered by blown sand. 
This is ascribed to the loosenings made by rabbits, the wind 
_getting entrance at these places—the Torrs for a long time having 
been used as a rabbit warren. 
The marram (Psamma arenaria) seems to be the sole occasion 
of the sand accumulating into high ridges and torrs, and it keeps 
on growing where the sand is drifting most plentifully. The sand 
sedge (Carex arenaria) is a great binder, its underground stems 
extending for several yards, but it does not assist in making 
hillocks, as its habitat is in the damp hollows. 
