Meetings of Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, by' J. Hardy. 403 



common Northumbrian superstition, which crops up in a great 

 variety of situations. In another field on the same farm, among 

 some stones placed close together, an old buckle was found, 

 drifted over with sand. The bronze vessel already referred to in 

 the Proceedings, which some, not considering the circumstances 

 and place where obtained, have considered as medieval, was 

 disinterred from a peat-moss in a field as one goes to College 

 water. 



Among the glitters on the hill face above Akeld, a bronze 

 sword, many years ago, was picked up, lying open to the day. 

 It was purchased by a curiosity-monger. So I was told by one 

 who had seen it. 



In draining "Red Rigs," the field on the slope above the 

 public road near Bender, the drainer turned up both human 

 skulls aud bones and the bones of horses, for a considerable dis- 

 tance. This is the traditional battle-field of Humbleton. Several 

 of the slain, it has been handed down, were buried in a mound 

 in Mr A. Sanderson's property below Humbleton, which remains 

 undisturbed. It is a popular myth that the little burn which 

 crosses the public road near Bender ran ensanguined, "on 

 Holyrood day," when " gallant Hotspur" "young Harry Percy 

 and brave Archibald, that ever-valiant and approved Scot, at 

 Holmedon met;" the result of that "sad and bloody hour," 

 being that "Earl Douglas was discomfited," and "ten thousand 

 bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights," were " balked in their own 

 blood," " on Holmedon's plains." This battle was fought 

 September 14, 1402. 



On the previous day Mr Hislop had visited Ohillingham, and 

 from an old tree in the Park dug out Sinodendron cylindricum, a 

 beetle that has not hitherto, in Northumberland, been found any 

 farther north than Morpeth. 



Mr H. H. Blair brought to the meeting from Alnwick, a 

 branch of Black Currant quite studded over with the brown 

 scales of a species of Lecanium. From the cottony substance de- 

 posited beneath the covering, thousands of young pink scales 

 afterwards issued, sufficient had they lived to stock a whole gar- 

 den with the plague. I have not found this species described. 

 Mr Cadogan had with him a small British implement of grey 

 flint, picked up at Howbalk, north of Whittingham. A bullet 

 said to have been picked up on Flodden field was shewn, Col, 



