MR selby's address. 37 



compelled the party, however reluctant, to seek the shelter of the 

 village inn, but not before that rare and lovely plant, the Pyrola 

 sccunda, had been cidled by Dr Johnston and Eev. Mr J. Baird. Com- 

 munications from both these gentlemen were afterwards read ; that of 

 Mr Baird referred to a plant found near to Kirk-Yetholm, and which 

 he endeavoured to prove was the Anemone rammculoides and not the 

 Ranunculm auricomus, as had been suggested by Professor Graham. 

 It, however, appears, that doubts still remain upon this point, which 

 we may hope to have resolved, by the reappearance of the flower in 

 the same locality where it was first discovered by Mr Baird last spring, 

 who has undertaken to watch narrowly its progress the ensuing season. 

 Dr Johnston's paper contained a notice of the plants and insects 

 observed at Abbey St Bathan's in April last. Among the former, he 

 particidarizes the Popidus tremula^ which grew, evidently in a wild 

 state, upon a bank of natural brushwood, nearly opposite the little inn, 

 and the Morchella esculenta (Morel), a rare fungus in this district, but 

 which was that day gathered in considerable abundance in the woods 

 around the "Retreat." He also added to his former list of Berwick- 

 shire fishes four new species, among which we notice the Blennius ten- 

 tacularis,'^ a fish new to the Scottish Fauna, and of rare occurrence 

 upon the English coast. Mr Ai-mstrong mentioned to the Club the 

 fact of the ring-ouzel breeding upon the hills in the neighbourhood of 

 "Wooler, from whence he had procured the nest ; and that a hooded 

 crow ( Corvus comix), had this last spring paired with a carrion crow 

 ( Corvus corone) at Fowberry, where it was kiUed from the nest, con- 

 taining eggs. Examples of a similar nature have also been known to 

 occur in Dumfriesshire, by oiu' colleague, Sir W. Jardine ; and 

 Temminck remarks that, in the northern counties of Europe, where 

 the C. corone is rare, a mixed breed is sometimes produced between it 

 and the C. comix. I cannot, however, entertain a doubt as to the specific 

 difference of the two birds, althoixgh Dr Fleming, I beheve, hesitates 

 in considering them distinct ; the marked and constant difference of 

 plumage, the form and size of their bills, their different cries, easily 

 distinguished by the acciu'ate observer, and the dissimilarity of habits 

 and manners, evidently separate them too far to warrant us in con- 

 sidering them as mere varieties of the same species. This is indeed 

 further strengthened by the rarity of such associations, and the cir- 

 cumstances under which they always take place, viz., when one of the 

 species is rare and thinly disseminated, as in those parts quoted by 

 Temminck, or in our own country, where some accident has detained 

 the C. comix, and prevented it re-migrating at the usual period with 

 its congeners. Circumstances again unfortunately prevented my pre- 

 sence at the July meeting of the Club at Smailholm, where a lovely 



* Of Brannich. Cuv. Reg. Anim. ii. 237. The Crested Blenny of Pennant,—^ 

 Mr Yarrell, to whom the specimen was presented. 



