Report of Meetings. By James Hardy. 269 



everything. The last Polecat, we are told in passing, was killed 

 in " Black Andro's Wood," some years ago. It was a pei-son 

 called "Black" Andrew Dickson, of Selkirk, who, to the emolu- 

 ment of himself and family, either furnished the trees, or himself 

 planted this portion of the Bowhill estate, and has had his name 

 commemorated in this hill-side of stately dark pines. The oaks 

 and hazels of the outskirts of the Hangingshaw, where they 

 thrive amidst a vast congeries of boulders, — the moraine one 

 might say of the whole vale of Yarrow, — are the remnants 

 of one of the old woods of the Forest. Treed of the shadows of 

 the woods, the prospect becomes more enlivening round the base 

 of Fastheugh hill, where there runs a fringe of bowery native 

 birches and alders in clumps, or disposed as elegant single trees, 

 along the southern bank of the stream. Fastheugh hill (1645 

 feet), being bared from base to summit on this side, is one of 

 the finest and most imposing heights on the Yarrow ; more so, 

 however, when looked back upon half-way up the vale, which it 

 seems to block up at this end with its bulk. It was empurpled 

 with heather in blossom ; and is not craggy, but very thin in the 

 skin, the core of rock beneath at intervals piercing through. 

 There are other large green hills as we proceed, but not of 

 remarkably striking forms, and rather characterless and lumpy, 

 seldom precipitate, a few shewing glitters or flows of small 

 stones, and one at least distinguished by a crag. The grass is 

 rougher than on the more arid uplands about Innerleithen. 

 Where it is moist the covering is sprit or bent or heather, but 

 less heathery than spritty or benty (for sprit and bent predomin- 

 ate), with extensive beds of brackens on the deeper, drier, and 

 finer grass ground. The soil is more peaty towards St. Mary's 

 Loch. 



Above and below Yarrow Kirk, there are numerous gravel 

 and drift mounds, which occasion much inequality on the sur- 

 face ;— spoils brought down from the upper ranges along ancient 

 water-courses, which have again been modified by the action of 

 the present streams. The sides of the vale are subdivided by 

 cross cleughs and passes ; some of which are broad depressions. 

 Others are narrower, and are intersected by rapid rivulets, whose 

 exits, bordered and littered by streaks and accumulations of rolled 

 gravel, attest the violence of the current during the rain or win- 

 ter spates ; but farthei- up during the spring and summer-tides, 

 lingering by the "yellow gowlon" meadows, or rushing between 



