220 Report of Meetings for 1880, by James Hardy. 



aculeatum, Asplenium Trichomanes (very luxuriant), Asp. Adiantum- 

 nigrum (profusely among dry rocks). Tlie vegetation in general 

 was that characteristic of a dry soil. Juniper bushes were occa- 

 sional, but are more abundant on the hill faces. Vilurnum 

 opulus grows in a ravine near Halls, and above Thurston Mains, 

 on Thornton burn. Elder occasionally appears. Encalyfta 

 streptocarpa grows on rocks in Halls wood. The Halls burn, the 

 Dryburn, and the Thornton burn all contain the common trout. 

 The woody-gall of the oak has appeared in these woods. The 

 wind made it disadvantageous to mark birds, but at a corres- 

 ponding period in last season the following, among others, were 

 noticed here : — The greater and cole-tits, the wren (very scarce), 

 red-breast, bull-finch, grey linnet (especially where there was 

 furze), willow-wren, wood-wren, black-cap warbler, blackbird, 

 thrush (scarce, and still remains so), sedge-warbler, white- 

 throat, grey fly-catcher (far up near the hills), red-start (near 

 Thurston), wood-pigeon, pied wagtail, sand-piper (not arrived 

 this season), coot, water-hen, dipper, carrion-crow, heron. On 

 wet fields near Woodhall and all along the brows of the Lam- 

 mermoors lapwings have their breeding-places ; curlews, golden- 

 plovers, and grouse have their home on the heaths ; and wild 

 ducks in the marshes. The cuckoo frequents the moor-edges in 

 numbers, where the pipit-lark builds, in whose nest the young 

 cuckoos are often found by the shepherds. The ring-ouzel 

 nestles in some of the cleughs ; and the wheat-ear on the stony 

 ground, formed where the Silurian rocks surmount the conglo- 

 merate deposits that lie in a trough along their base. 



Time would only permit reaching the deeply-cloven fissure 

 where the dean takes an abrupt turn at right angles, and where 

 the steep rock overhangs on both sides at a considerable width. 

 This is called "The Tinkler's Loup," because a tinker, in 

 escaping with manacled hands from the officers of justice, once 

 leapt the chasm without breaking his neck. The people tell of 

 a boy who here fell over the precipice and was killed. 

 " Hawks," perhaps kestrels, build in the rocks of this wild part 

 of the dean. Some of the promontories or protuberances in the 

 adjoining dean have peculiar names, such as the Kimmerstock 

 Knowe and the Priest's Pulpit. One of the fields on Woodhall 

 is called the Boar's Loch, and there is a tradition that the last 

 wild boar that haunted that part of the country was killed there. 



i 



