462 Report of Meetings. By the President. 



the Tyne, with the plantations upon its banks, . up to Hailes 

 Castle, and the green grassy or grey rocky declivities, and 

 massive bulk of storied Traprain were close at hand ; and on 

 reaching the elevation at Sunnyside, the woods of Whittingham 

 appear, with the red-coloured church on the margin, and the 

 roof and chimneys of the mansion house, environed by the screen 

 of trees, which spread dark and heavily massed amidst culti- 

 vated fields, variously divided and diversely hued according to 

 their respective crops. The back-ground is occupied by the 

 brown and green Lamraermoors and the densely wooded Pres- 

 mennan hill. - Stoneypath Tower could be caught in the distance 

 in one direction, and in another an obelisk on the Blaikeyheugh, 

 raised at the expense of the county yeomanry to the memory of 

 the late Mr Balfour. The farms and hamlets passed were 

 Traprain, Sunnyside, Luggate, Luggate village, and Whittingham 

 Mains. Under the influence of recent rains the crops looked 

 promising ; but on the heavy soils, with exceptional fields, the 

 turnips were considerably in arrear of the general East Lothian 

 crop. When Mr Archibald Hepburn occupied Whittingham 

 Mains, besides being an ardent ornithologist, he paid consider- 

 able attention to the Coleoptera, and the results are recorded in 

 the late Mr Andrew Murray's " Catalogue of the Coleoptera of 

 Scotland." His rarest capture was Lina populi at Whittingham. 

 On one occasion I visited Traprain Law from his residence, and 

 picked up under stones at the base, the following rarish beetles : 

 Utiorhynchus monticola, 0. scabrosus, Dtacantkus holosericeus, and 

 D. ceneus ; Sunius angustatus and Agathidium atrum. Mr Hepburn 

 likewise captured some good moths in the neighbourhood, and 

 at Presmennan. the names of which are entered in the Club's 

 "Proceedings," vol. ii. pp. 212-213. 



The modern church of Whittingham, built of red sandstone, is 

 handsomely fitted up in the interior. The Rev. Mr Eobertson, 

 to whom the Club were much indebted for guidance, recounted 

 its history, exhibited the church plate (silver communion cups of 

 date 1683), and gave a synopsis of the contents of the old session 

 minutes of dates from 1674 to 1690, and which are very legibly 

 written. In the churchyard are curiously sculptured grave- 

 stones of last century, and an interesting piece of architecture of 

 last century (the Sydserfi" vault). On enquiry if there was any 

 entry of where Andrew Baxter, the metaphysician, once tutor to 

 the Drummelzier family, and author of " An Inquiry into the 



