Soi.wAv Nature Notes, 157 



7th February, 1913. 



Chairman — Mr S. Arnott, V.P. 



Solway Nature Notes. 



By Mr Wilson H. Armistead. 



The indebtedness of the Nature student to those who 

 speciahse is so great that one is apt to be dissatisfied with 

 general observations covering a wide field, and each year 

 when one sees how in many departments splendid work is 

 being done, this dissatisfaction is likely to seriously upset the 

 pleasure one has hitherto taken in the varied life of the great 

 outdoor world. One realises that the work of the specialist 

 is of immense value to science, and seeing the results and 

 knowing something of the concentration necessary, it is, I 

 think, only, natural that the older and more slipshod methods 

 should lose their attraction. The man who lays claim to 

 be a naturalist to-day must needs ha\e tra\elled further along 

 the road to knowledge and dipped deeper into the things that 

 are hidden than was the case during the last century. 



One may approach Nature in many ways and many 

 moods, but the man who wanders through her gardens and 

 her wildernesses, charmed with her works, interested in her 

 creatures, and content to worship at her shrine, is after all 

 touched only by her superficial beauty, and knows little or 

 nothing of the wonder and mystery which go to the making 

 of so marvellous a whole. 



English Army Lists and Commission Register, 1661-1714, iv., pp. 175, 

 270; v., pt. 2, pp. 39-40; vi., pp. 195, 325; see also H. R. Knight, 

 Historical liecords of the Buffs. . . , London, 1905, i., p. 534). 

 He died a Captain in 1721, so far as is known, unmairied (C. Dalton, 

 George the First's Army, 1714-1727, London, 1912, ii., p. 278). 

 James had as curators Thomas Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, Eobert 

 Lawrie of Maxwelton, Robert Ferguson of Craigdarroch, and Jolm 

 Grierson of Capenoch. He married Agnes, daughter of Thomas 

 M'Burnie, Provost of Dumfries (date of marriage contract, 24th 

 August, 1697) ; and his descendants owned the lands of Dalgoner and 

 Poundland, until these were sold in 1885 to the father of the 

 present proprietor. 



