( 243 ) 



The Anniversary Address to the Berwickshire Naturalists'' Club, delivered 

 at Kelso, 15th September 1841. By Francis Douglas, M.D., 

 President. 



G-ENTLEMEN, 



Previous to resigning the honourable situation to which I was 

 elevated at the last Anniversary Meeting of the Club, I must discharge 

 the usual duties of your President, by giving an account of the trans- 

 actions of the Club, during the year which has now expired. 



The 10th anniversary meeting of the Club took place at Holy Island 

 on the 30th of September, when the following members attended ; Dr 

 Johnston, P. J, Selby, Esq., Dr Clarke, Captain Mitford, Mr Melrose, 

 and F. J. W. CoUingwood, Esq. The Club were honoured with the 

 company of the Rev. J. Dixon Clarke, Messrs Hubback and Heath, 

 Barristers, and Mr Alexander Douglas, from Kelso. 



After breakfast, a letter addressed to the Secretary of the Club from 

 Chevalier Michelotti of Turin was read. It conveyed an offer of the 

 Fossils of Italy, belonging to the Tertiary period. It was a matter of 

 regret that this handsome offer could not be accepted, in conse- 

 quence of one of the fundamental rules of the Club forbidding the 

 acquisition of any property ; " but it was a flattering unction to their 

 consequence and importance to know, that their name and fame had 

 spread beyond the land of brown heather, and was cherished even in 

 the land of the vine and the myrtle." The walk of the Club was 

 directed towards the Coves, where an hour or two was busily devoted 

 in searching out and noting the various marine animals which lurk 

 beneath the flat stones in " Coveshaven.'^ The Coves are excavated in 

 a very picturesque sandstone clilf, of about 200 yards in length, and 

 35 feet in height : three of them are of considerable size and interest ; 

 their walls are covered with a dense coat of the Polysiphonia stricta, 

 which gives them the appearance of being papered with a rich scarlet 

 cloth. In former times, they were the resort of numerous flocks of 

 seals, which took, in those cool recesses, their repose without fear of 

 surprise ; but they have now forsaken their ancient haunts, expelled 

 by the too frequent visits of lovers of the picturesque or of poaching, 

 and by the revels of pleasure parties and Picknickians. A few rari- 

 ties were found in the haven, of which the following may be specified. 

 — Of Algse, the only one worth notice is Zonaria deusta, which spreads 

 like a lichen over the rocks in great profusion. The Millepora 

 lichenoides, the Melobesice, and Corallina officinalis, occurred in every 

 pool; and it was easy to demonstrate by the different staged 



