AYR TO DUMFRIES. 32S 



born. It is a fine early climate for cattle, sheltered 

 as it is from the cold North, and with two hundred 

 acres of good old pasture, enough to set some short- 

 horn breeders^ teeth on edge. Mr. Stewart delights 

 in his garden ; but we cared for none of those things- 

 save the Cryptomeria Japonica, or Chinese cedar, and 

 the Taxodium Semper Virens from New Zealand. 

 They may be forest trees elect, but the price is at pre- 

 sent prohibitive. 



" Southwick^s sunny vale^^ lies about a mile and a- 

 half from the Solway, just opposite Allonby. Grouse 

 bags can be made on the hills behind ; the partridges 

 scurry away under the feet of the shorthorns ; and 

 foxes wage their wonted war against the roe-deer 

 calves, among the weeping birches and the richly 

 tangled undergrowth of oaks. There are harriers 

 but no foxhounds in the Stewartry, and in vain do 

 the Commissioners of Supplj^ propose a premium of 

 ten shillings on a fox^s ears, and seven shillings for 

 a cub's, as " they are quite outbidden by the Eng- 

 lish countries." Trees grow down to the sea shore^. 

 where the sheldrake with its chocolate breast and 

 broad ring hatches many a brood. The herons have 

 their fishing stations on the Solway, and build in 

 the silver fir near the ivy and holly-covered mill^ 

 wheel, and patiently draw the burn for hirlingg^ 

 which come up from the sea in the second week of 

 July, and cause such doughty controversies among 

 the savans as to whether they are trout or salmon. 



Two or three Alderneys were grouped under the 



2y 2 



