Transactions. 45 



kept bis spirit hovering about his relatives to their clisconit'ort and 

 annoyance. A funeral is still an occasion of some ceremony in 

 Scotland, but in the days of our forefathers it possessed all the 

 importance of a festival ; " a dry funeral " being considered un- 

 lucky. Not only ale and porter, but whisky and rum, port wine 

 and sherry were provided in quantity and in quality corresponding 

 with the social standing of the deceased. To such an extent 

 indeed was drinking sometimes carried that there are instances 

 on record of the procession reaching tlie graveyard without the 

 corpse, the coffin having been left by drunken inadvertence at 

 some stage in the way. Once tiie grave has been filled in over 

 the dead, it is still customary for the relatives and friends to 

 return to the after funeral feast, where intoxicants are rarely 

 altogether absent. 



Notes on the Flora of the Moffat District. 



By Mr J. Thorbubn Johnstone. 



Tlie INIoftat district, from its geographical position and natural 

 surroundings, has a flora of an interesting and unique cliaracter 

 for a lowland district, being unusually ricii in Alpine and sub- 

 Alpine forms, which find a fitting habitat among tlie wild, bare, 

 rocky crags and bleak ravines of Blackshope, Corrieferrun, Loch 

 Skene, Midlaw Burn, itc. Tt also forms tlie connecting link 

 between the floras of the Cumberland and Westmoreland high- 

 lands in England on the one hand, and that of Perth and Forfar 

 in Scotland on the other, and this even though our hills arc not 

 the highest in the South of Scotland, yet an examination of the 

 Society's list of plants shows that the Mofliit liills are a safe 

 retreat and a sure one for a larger number of the rarer plants 

 than these higher hills. Notwithstanding the richness of our 

 flora, the literature regarding it is of a v(n-y limited and meagi-e 

 description, and with the exception of some isolated references in 

 some of the Botanical Societies' transactions and the " Statistical 

 Account of Scotland for 1843," it may be said to be the work of 

 one individual, a native of the district — viz., the late Mr John 

 Sadler, curator of the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. As far back 

 as 1857 and 1858 Mr Sadler gave the result of his botanical 

 researches in the district in the columns of the Moffat Register, 

 the local newspaper at that time, and he likewise published about 



