44G The Nightingale in Northumberland, by Rev. J. F. Bigge. 



of the older British Bathad, which would be pronounced guttural 

 in the middle letters. In the Gaelic psalms rathad often appears 

 as Bod, a contracted form, and this may afford the key to the 

 dialectic variations of Bottenrow and Battanraw now found over 

 the island. 



[For my part, I see no mystery in Bottenrow or Battenraw, to 

 occasion any contention, it being a very competent term for a 

 range of primitive rotten or " downcoming" dwellings, composed 

 for the most part of clay, wood, and thatch, and in some in- 

 stances perhaps adhering to their sites or neighbourhood, when 

 removed, or after a better class of buildings had been substituted. 

 The Shiny Row, the Pitmen's Row, the Back Row, or Raw, are 

 everyday examples ; or The Raw, per se, e. g. near Rothbury ; 

 and the "Raw" of farm-places, where the servants reside; all 

 derived from the A.S. rcewa, a series, rank or row. Battenraw in 

 Reedsdale near Elishaw, was, it is well-known, a " Tinklers' 

 Raw." It is a common arrangement in hamlets. " Cocklaw 

 and Keepick," says the Northumbrian rhyme, " stand in a raw." 

 It cannot be doubted that a Highland highway may, as Mr Hil- 

 son says, be described by a phrase sounding something like 

 Battenraiv ; but' the instances are not identical ; and when was 

 modern Gaelic spoken so extensively either in the Lowlands of 

 Scotland or in England as to give origin to a term so widely dis- 

 tributed as Rottenrow ? Routes and ways now called Rotten- 

 rows indicate that they were once lined with decayed structures 

 answerable to the titles. The use of " Raw" for a range of farm- 

 houses, occurs as early as 1428, in a partition of Barislands in 

 Eccles Parish, of which the steading lay " on the north raw" at 

 the west end of the town of Halsington. (Liber de Melros, No. 

 525.)— J. H.] 



Occurrence of the Nightingale in Northumberland. By 

 the Rev. J. F. Bigge, Stamfordham. 



During the very hot weather in the last week in June, 1878, a 

 Nightingale was heard about 8 o'clock for several evenings sing- 

 ing in a wood close to Blanchland, on the river Derwent, in the 

 county of Northumberland. A great number of the inhabitants 

 went out each night to hear it. 



