178 Remarks on Wallace's Trench, by Thos. Craig-Brown. 



Death's Head Moth. — I have seen two lately; one was caught 

 at Cliffton Park, July 8th, the other in a greenhouse at Kelso, 

 August 5th, 1880. 



August 9fh, 1880. 



Remarks on Wallace's Trench, Selkirkshire. By Thomas 

 Craig-Brown, Esq., Wooclburn, Selkirk. 



It may be said that the Trench lies almost direct north and 

 south, stretching from the summit to the base of a steep hill 

 called the " Brown Knowe " on the Ordnance Survey Maps. It 

 is intersected near the lower end by the well-known mountain- 

 road leading from Yarrow over Minchmoor to Tweed. The 

 trench below this road is deep and clearly traceable, but not 

 being certain at what point it lost itself in a ravine, which, if it 

 ever was artificial, is now apparently a natural gxiHy, we did not 

 measure this end. From the Minchmoor road to the top of the 

 hill, Wallace's Trench proper may be said to be 1,600 feet in 

 length, but on nearing the top it deflects a little to the right, 

 and thence forms one side of a rather extensive rectangular en- 

 closure. [By a sketch-plan annexed, the distance from the hill- 

 road upwards to the fortified enclosure is 1,100 feet ; then after 

 a slight interruption, there are 200 feet of the trench in the same 

 continuous line, tiU it bends round and forms the side of the en- 

 closure for other 300 feet. The distance across the enclosure 

 from E. to W. is 100 feet.] The. opposite side is a weU-marked 

 shallow fosse and rampart, but the Trench itself is deep enough 

 to hide a man on horseback [this I tried myself on a previous 

 visit] for several hundred yards. It is laboriously constructed, 

 the high ramparts on either side, being in many places paved 

 with flat whinstones set on edge. Except that it is in close 

 vicinity to the Oatrail, it has nothing to do with it. Compara- 

 tively speaking, it is a bit of modern military engineering, as 

 contrasted with that ancient work. 



