442 REVIEW. [February, 



The Balloch, near Keith, is described as the botanist^s para- 

 dise, and the plants in this northern Eden are Cardamine am.ara, 

 Adoxa Moschatellina, Paris quadrifolia (very rare), Lister a 

 ovata, Pyrola secunda, Sanicula europcea, Trollius europceus, 

 Trientalis europoea, Carduus heterophyllus. 



The following anecdote about the recent introduction of tur- 

 nips into that remote part of our island will remind the readers 

 of Charles Lamb's works of his curious answer to a Hertfordshire 

 farmer about the goodness of the turnips in a certain season. 

 The honest folks of Banffshire knew that turnips were good 

 either with or minus the legs of mutton : — 



•' In passing, let us mark a few things. On that little house at Bridge- 

 foot of Boyndie, tradition has it that Cumberland's men hanged a herd- 

 boy as a spy. But we are past, and now at Mill of Boyndie. It was 

 on that farm that turnips were first seen in Banffshire. They were intro- 

 duced by the last Lord Findlater. Calling one day on Mr. Milne, he 

 asked him how the turnips were thriving ? ' "Very well, my Lord, but the 

 people are stealing them aU,' was the answer. The good Lord Pindlater 

 said for comfort, ' The more they steal the better.' He knew that, as the 

 people learned their good qualities, they would soon grow them for them- 

 selves." 



The following good remark on the curative properties of the 

 St. Johu's-worts, Hypericum hirsutum, H. pulchrum, etc., may- 

 amuse the unbelievers in Dr. Coffin : — 



" These plants have many other excellent qualities, in which our fore- 

 fathers put implicit faith, and by which they were healed of their diseases, 

 rather by the plants having none of the reputed qualities, and thus nature, 

 being left to itself, eifected the cure ; or perhaps it may be, as Taine, a 

 clever French writer, says, that people got cured of their diseases so long- 

 as the medicine had the power !" 



Does the clever Frenchman believe that the plant, or drug de- 

 rived therefrom, has lost its power, or that the patients have lost 

 their confidence in its efficacy ? 



" Near Botriphne, in Loch Park, were found the following : — Hippuris 

 vulgaris (Mare's-tail), one or two species of Myriophylliim, with other 

 water plants. In the hills around the loch, grows, in great plenty, Sani- 

 cula europeBa (Sanicle). It is one of the umbelliferous plants, and has 

 glittering dark-green leaves. It receives its name from its supposed heal- 

 inf virtues (from sano, to heal). An old writer sums up its virtues in 

 these words : — ' And briefly, it is as effectual in binding, restraining, con- 



