Anniversary Address. 211 



oldest legible stones is a Throuch bearing a Calvary Cross ; 

 round the outer border is inscribed " Here lyeth ane 



HONEST MAN CALLIT JOHN THOMSON, PORTIONER IN GULANE, 



who departed this life, 1578." There are also tombs of 

 the Heriots, relatives of George ' Heriot, founder of the 

 hospital bearing his name. 



A brief visit was now paid to Saltcoats, an extensive old 

 manorial house in ruins ; on the west front the Norman 

 .rch of Dirleton is repeated. The base and the top of the 

 garden walls are fringed with flowering Cheiranthus Cheiri, 

 Parietaria officinalis, Sempervivum tectorum, and Saxifraga 

 tridactylitis. Chalmers in his Caledonia says, " near Golin, 

 at the mouth of the West Peffer, there was of old a salt 

 work which imparted to the place the significant name of 

 Saltcoats." The late possessor, Lady Ruthven, was the re- 

 presentative of the ancient family of Levingtouns de Salt- 

 coats, through the marriage of the heiress of that line to John 

 Hamilton, eldest son of Hamilton of Pencaitland. It is now 

 portion of the Luffhess estate. 



After dinner, Mr Hardy read a paper from Mr Gray, " On 

 the Birds of the Islands of the Firth of Forth." Dr Robson 

 Scott exhibited some very rude flint implements, found in 

 gravel at the bottom of a newly opened drain at Belford, 

 Yetholm. The Rev. James Farquharson sent some remarks 

 on the lateness ot the season, as shown by the foliation of 

 the trees at Selkirk. Professor Balfour observed that he 

 had had the greatest difficulty in procuring specimens of 

 plants to illustrate his lectures. Dr J. A. Murray, of Hen- 

 don, Middlesex, on behoof of the English Dialect Society, 

 made a request for members to aid him by sending him the 

 titles and dates of local publications in the Scottish dialect, 

 for a bibliographical work to be issued by that Society. 

 The following were proposed for membership — Mr James 

 Lumsden, Jun., F.Z.S., Arden House, Dumbartonshire ; Mr 

 James Tait, Eglingham ; and Isaac Bayley Balfour, Sc. Dr., 

 Edinburgh. 



Our next meeting was at Acklington and Felton, on the 



1 A 



