Transactions. 9 



September last I received from Newton-Stewart a specimen of a 

 shark called the Porbeagle Shark. It was 9 feet in length and 

 weighed about 400 lb?. It is described as being rare, or at least 

 very seldom seen upon our shores. This one was caught in Loch- 

 ryan, having got entangled in some fishermen's nets, and was with 

 difficulty brought to land. It has three rows of very sharp teeth 

 in the upper as well as in the under jaw, and is said to be very 

 voracious, having been known to attack men in a small boat and 

 tear their clothes off their backs. It lives upon other fishes, 

 and will have no difficulty in swallowing a fish two feet long at a 

 mouthful. It was not a very agreeable subject to handle. 



III. Folk Lore in Tynron. By Mr James Shaw. 



An old farmer who died three years ago in Tynron related to 

 me his experience with a witch in Closeburn when he was a boy. 

 He was carting freestones from a neighbouring quarry, when his 

 horse came to a standstill opposite the witch's door. Two other 

 carters passed him, and only jeered both at the witch and the 

 boy, when the former, to whom he had always been civil, came 

 forward and with a slight push adjusted the ponderous stone which 

 had slipped and was stopping the wheel. " Now, go," she said, 

 " thou M'ilt find them at the gate below Gilchristland." At that 

 very spot he found the perplexed carters standing, both horses 

 trembling and sweating, so that he easily went past them and got 

 to his goal first. The same individual could name a person at 

 whose glance the milk being drawn from the udders of the cows 

 became blood, while his sister was milking them. I have observed 

 horse-shoes nailed up against his stable wall to scare away uncanny 

 influence. A dairy woman who resided beside me about fifteen years 

 ago informed me that when young she had resided in Kirkconnel, 

 Tynron, and that the house was haunted. At night strange fiices 

 peered in at the window, and eldritch laughter was heard. Her 

 father once saw a red figure at dusk on the ledge of the bridge, 

 near the house, which appeared of human shape, but disappeared 

 as he approached. He also on one occasion saw my informant's 

 sweetheart on the road coming to see her, although at the time he 

 was several miles off. A housekeeper I had, who died a few years 

 ago, assured me that, while she was a servant with a medical man 

 in Moniaive, strange foot-falls were frequently heard in an upper 

 room. The doctor, after a while, suddenly took ill, lay down on a 

 sofa and died, over the very spot on the floor where these alarming 



