1858.] NOTES ON THE FLORA OF BRAEMAR. 341 



not uncommon. This finished our day^s work, and was by us 

 considered as a very successful day^s ramble, for it was a ramble 

 .in every sense of the word. But it exemplifies what has often 

 been said, though it may perhaps have been unwritten or un- 

 printed, that " a botanist is never out of the way, or he never 

 loses his way." This of course refers exclusively to his botanizing 

 walks. He may lose his way at Seven Dials or in the purlieus of 

 Spitalfields, just as any other ordinary mortal occasionally does ; 

 but he is generally too good a judge to be misled or to be deceived 

 about his route, in the country, when he is in search of plants. 



This tract ofiers no ordinary attractions to the botanist, for it 

 is beautiful as well as productive. The fens of Lincoln are pro- 

 ductive, but not beautiful; this is both fertile and charming. 

 It has another attraction — it may be reached at a small outlay 

 of capital. An investment of two shillings will produce a ride of 

 128 miles, going and returning, through a lovely region, and give 

 the investor the means of getting for his herbarium some of the 

 very choicest of the floral treasures of our isle. 



NOTES ON THE ELOEA OE BEAEMAE, ABEEDEENSHIEE. 

 By John Barton. 



We now leave the wooded valley of the Dee, with the seques- 

 tered mountain-glens diverging from it on either side, and ascend 

 far above the haunts of men into a region of wild and solemn 

 grandeur, — the home of the dotterel, the snow-bunting, and the 

 ptarmigan, the red-deer and the mountain hare, — but rarely dis- 

 turbed by a human footstep during the long winter and spring 

 months, and even during the most favourable seasons of the year 

 seldom traversed by any but the keeper or the deer-stalker, the 

 adventurous naturalist, or perhaps now and then a stray tourist. 

 I have more than once ranged those mountain solitudes for eight 

 or ten hours at a time, without encountering a single human 

 being ; rarely even did we hear the familiar home-like sound of 

 the tinkling sheep-bell ; for miles and miles round the country 

 is one vast deer-forest; and, as a general rule throughout the 

 Highlands, wherever deer are preserved, there everything else 

 of animal kind disappears to make way for them. 



We shall find the mountains of Braemar divide themselves 



