president's address. 519 



the trysting place, which, bore the convivial name of Brandy 

 Bank. Those who had gone from Reedsmouth by the valley 

 met the hill party here, and after an excellent dinner all joined 

 the train, and got to Newcastle about nine in the evening. 



August 17. — Cotherstone. — The distance of to-day's rendez- 

 vous necessitated an early start from Newcastle (at 5.20 a.m.), 

 and rendered the party a smaller one than a shorter expedition 

 might have commanded. Twenty-three members of the Club 

 arrived at Cotherstone soon after 8 a.m., where a capital break- 

 fast awaited them at the clean, tidy, little hotel, the Red Lion. 

 After breakfast they placed themselves under the guidance of the 

 Rev. William East, and walked by the foot bridge across the 

 Tees, to a bold, square-fronted rock, which projects from the 

 upper parts of its woody banks, and bears the name of Percy 

 Mort, looking very like the ruins of an old castle : the view from 

 it is very extensive and pleasing. Re-crossing the river by the 

 same bridge, the party rambled down the other side, to some 

 curious excavatians in the sandstone rock at the level of the 

 water, called the Fairy Cupboards. The steep banks of the 

 river' on both sides are richly wooded and abundant in wild 

 plants. Near the Fairy Cupboards I saw some of the largest 

 fronds of the hart's tongue fern that I remember ; they were 

 upwards of eighteen inches long. On the way thither from the 

 bridge, in passing through a field called Woden's Croft, the green 

 Hellebore, a large, conspicuous, and rather rare plant, was found 

 in some abundance, unfortunately its flowers were long passed. 

 During the day were found also Cystopteris fragilis, Aspleniwm 

 Adiantum-nigrum, Lastrcea oreopteris, &c. 



A curious ant track was seen in Woden's Croft, extending 

 for a distance of some forty yards, from a large ants' nest 

 towards the river; it was about two inches wide, thronged 

 with ants going to and from the river ; the grass through which 

 it passed was about two inches high, the road-way itself quite 

 bare and trodden ; and along the sides, whether from the formic 

 acid of their bodies, or from the mere friction of the passers to 

 and fro, the herbage was quite dead and almost red in colour. 



