150 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



feet above the sea, which bounds the Vale above the kirk of 

 Tough ; down into the valley of the Dee ; past the church of 

 Lumphanan, to the Loch of Auchlossan, since drained, 

 close by the Dee. There they got the pretty green plant, 

 with small yellow papilionaceous flowers and sharp thorns, 

 called needle greenwood, petty whin, or carlin's spur 

 (Genista Anglica), which had longer needles or spurs than 

 they ever saw ; " bad," as John remarked, " for bar' feet." 

 One day they ascended the Red Hill near the crest of 

 Corennie Forest, above the farm ofTillyfour since famous 

 under Mr. McCombie for his fine breed of polled cattle, 

 visited by the Queen in 1866. Here Charles dropped his 

 copy of Dickie's " Flora," which he had purchased at its first 

 issue ; and, notwithstanding diligent search then and after- 

 wards, he never, saw it again a loss which he could ill 

 afford, and which distressed him much for its own sake, as 

 an old companion and trusty guide in their researches. 

 John, however, purchased a copy shortly after, for they 

 could not do without it, and thus their progress was not 

 impeded. 



They explored minutely the whole course of the Don, 

 from below Monymusk up to Kildrummy, with its splendid 

 castellated ruins, and on to Towie, where they found the 

 dwarf herbaceous bourtree or elder (Sambucus ebulus). 



But the part they frequented most was the mountainous 

 region behind Whitehouse, which bounds the Vale on the 

 east, already so often mentioned when John lived on its 

 eastern slopes by Paradise. Here they would go, past the 

 fine erect monolith of gneiss called Luath's Stone, where a 

 son of Macbeth's is said to lie buried, to the top of the Green 

 Hill, above thirteen hundred feet. This commands a view 



