292 Mr. G. Heiideisou's Botanical Notices. 



However gratifying it may be to our love of perilous adven- 

 ture, and our desire of exciting information, to look back 

 from the quiet and conscious security of our vroodland strolls, 

 over long years of outrage and dangers occasioned by animals 

 whose existence no longer fills us -with alarm, the reality and 

 experience of that period furnishes a striking contrast to the 

 tranquillity with which it is contemplated. Some idea of it 

 may be formed from the official reports of Livonia, a territory, 

 from the vast forests with which it is overspread, still subject 

 to the devastations of wolves. In 1823, in that province 

 alone, the wolves destroyed 1841 horses, 1807 horned cattle, 

 733 calves, 15,182 sheep, 726 lambs, 2545 goats, 183 kids, 

 4190 swine, 312 sucking pigs, 703 dogs, 1243 fowls, 673 

 geese.* In examining these proportions, we see how true are 

 the old Scotsman's lines — deductions it may be from his per- 

 sonal experience — 



" He feris great beastis, and ragis on the small, 

 And leiffis in slauchtev, tyranny and blud, 

 But ony mercy, quhare he may ouir thrall." 



Bellendcn's Proheme to Hector Boece. 



* Edin. Phil. Journ. xi. 1831, p. 398. 



Botanical Notices. By George Henderson, Surgeon, 

 Chirnside. 



The following are unrecorded stations of three of our more 

 interesting plants : — 



Orobus sylvaticus, on the hedge bank, by the way-side, 

 to the east of Hill end in the parish of Coldingham — also by 

 the side of a ditch, to the north of the onstead, on the same 

 farm. 



Astragalus glycyphyllos, on the north bank of the 

 Whitadder, a little to the west of the ruius of the old border- 

 tower of Blanerne. Two stations for this plant have recently 

 been lost ; the one at Whitehall in the parish of Chirnside, 

 has been extir]3ated in the course of some improvements 

 there — and the other, in the ravine above Burnmouth, by 

 the line of the railway. 



Typha latifolia, in a ditch between Dykegatehead and 

 Hylton, parish of Whitsome — and near Ramrig, in the parish 

 of Swinton. 



