of Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, by J. Hardy. 401 



Oppressed by the heat, more than half the company parted 

 from those who determined to go forward, and went down by 

 Akeld to the turnpike. The remainder after refreshing them- 

 selves at the burn, started anew, five taking the lead, and three 

 after a pause, following at leisure. Only three of the former 

 reached the hill-top. Those who came last kept at a lower level, 

 and descended by the edge of Whitelaw to the scene of the Club's 

 excavations on the lower part of Yeavering Bell ; and then pro- 

 ceeding to Yeavering met there a party of members who had 

 come from Yetholm. 



The Viola lutea was noticed in crossing the moors ; as it had 

 been near Harehope. Myosotis repens grew beside the cool 

 streams. 



The party who had gone round by the turnpike and ascended 

 the Bell, sought in vain for Pyrola secunda ; but during their 

 search they discovered two nests of the meadow pipit ; in one of 

 them was a young cuckoo nearly fledged ; and in the other nest 

 a cuckoo egg among those of the rightful owner. The view from 

 the summit of Yeavering Bell is exceedingly extensive and varied, 

 and though there was a thick haze in the atmosphere, the 

 prospect was certainly pleasing. See Nat. Hist, of the Eastern 

 Borders, pp. 140, 141. Nothing can be added to Mr Tate's 

 account of the hill, in the Club's " Proceedings," vol. iv., p. 431. 



It is said that in recent times, the number of trees in the oak 

 wood, on the northern side, have been considerably diminished. 

 A great hag in 1802-3, when the large oak timber was conveyed 

 to Berwick, to be employed by the Messrs Gowan in ship-build- 

 ing, thinned them. During snowstorms, the old shepherds on 

 the opposite or Lanton side, were always sure their sheep would 

 not be covered with snow wreaths, so long as " Yeavering Oaks" 

 were not drifted up out of sight. In some summers they are 

 much defoliated by the caterpillars of Tortrix viridana, when all 

 the rooks of the neighbourhood flock to the wood and fiud some- 

 thing useful to do, for once in their lives. 



The meaning of the word Yeavering has been already attempted 

 to be given in the "Proceedings." Kemble in his "Saxons in 

 England," makes it the "mark" of the Greoforingas. An 

 amusing misconception of the word Yeavering Bell is to be found 

 in Prior's "Popular Names of British Plants." He mistakes 

 the locality of Pyrola secunda in the "Flora of the Eastern 



