48 Report of Meetings for 1879, by James Hardy. 



May. The oviparous wingless female appears in October, when 

 tbe winged male pairs with it. The eggs are fastened in Novem- 

 ber to the twigs of the trees. From June to October only a few 

 little Aphides of retarded growth appear."^' This insect differs 

 from the Coccus Faji which attacks the trunks of the beech, and 

 covers them with a cottony layer. This Coccus has been ob- 

 served at Ayton, and in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, and in 

 Dalkeith Park. 



Mr Loney also called attention to the damage committed by 

 wood pigeons, to the growth of spruce and silver firs, by their 

 custom of preferring to perch on their topmost branches, and 

 breaking them down by their weight. On examination it was 

 found that there were hundreds in this condition. Spruce firs, 

 it is said, do not last here over 40 or 45 years ; after that period 

 they decay inwardly, the moist sandy soil being prejudicial to 

 their welfare. 



Before leaving Marchmont it must not be omitted to notice an 

 immense blue basaltic boulder, estimated to weigh 14 tons, lying 

 in the woods on the banks of the Swirden burn. This had been 

 turned up in an adjacent field in the course of cultivation, and 

 dragged b}^ horses into its present position. There are the scars 

 of ploughs and harrows that have operated on it, at one end ; and 

 also a series of parallel lines at the base, which may be either 

 structural or glacial, if they are not deceptive traces of moisture 

 falling from the tree beneath which it has become a fixture. The 

 dimensions of this boulder as taken by Mr Loney are — length, 

 10 feet ; breadth, 5 feet ; longest circumference, 23 feet 4 inches ; 

 across top and sides, 12 feet. 



At Greenlaw several visited the church. At the entrance at 

 the bottom of the kirk steeple, the cell of the more depraved 

 prisoners, long known, when this formed a portion of the jail, as 

 the " Thieves' hole," and " Greenlaw pit," was pointed out. In 

 March, 1844, when the stair was made that gives access to the 

 bell, a human skeleton was found between the top of the arch of 

 the cell and the wooden floor above ; supposed to have been that 

 of some one murdered by his prison associates, and then con- 

 cealed. A few of the more interesting inscriptions on the tomb- 

 stones were copied. 



To this meeting the Rev. Wm. Dobie brought from Ladykirk 



* Annals of Nat. Hist. 2nd Series, 1848, pp. 328-330. 



