Report of Meetings for 1880, by James Hardy. 271 



To bring up the Natural History observations, we sball revert 

 to the Poltross burn ; where the bird- cherry and the hazel grew 

 at the entrance of the tangled glen. It is a reputed locality' for 

 Lysimachia vulgaris. There were also some good oaks in the 

 fields. Linaria origanifolia was one of the border -flowers at the 

 vicarage, which I subsequently saw in a half wild state at Eose 

 Castle. Garden flowers have their districts, as well as wild. On 

 the remains of the wall, hazels, mountain ashes, briars and 

 brambles manifested the tendency of the ground when stony to 

 run to woodland. Mentha arvensis grew as a field weed ; and it 

 waS' difficult to say whether it or the quicken was most prevalent. 

 Before us the Irthing hid itself in a darksome dell between steep 

 and wooded banks. The swallows had not yet deserted the 

 Willowford farm for their winter destination ; they had not been 

 present about Hexham on the previous day ; but were seen on 

 the day following near Naworth. Climbing a bank above the 

 farm-stead, some pretty fungi were picked up in the pastures, 

 which were deteriorating into a half -wild condition. A granite 

 boulder placed on the ridge, was found by measurement to be 4 

 feet 8 inches long, 3 feet broad, and 2 deep. Mr Howse had 

 already prepared me to expect Crifiel granites on our route. A 

 number of fragments of a considerable variety of granites were 

 preserved in the vicarage garden. Many larks and pipits were 

 hovering in a singing position in the air. This is a county for 

 larks. They were afterwards seen most numerously at Welton, 

 beyond Carlisle. We walked along the margin of a concave 

 wood, called the Hollow "Wood, which contained hazel, mountain- 

 ash, birch, ash, sallow and alder, and then crossed, by successive 

 trips in a farm-cart, the Irthing, which was in flood. Here there 

 were many mountain limestone corals among the channel stones. 

 Thickets of the Salix purpurea grew at the crossing, and there 

 were several wild roses ; the fruits of Rosa villosa being rich and 

 plump. At Underheugh, a small farmery, a portion of a Eoman 

 altar lying flat by a wall-side, was turned up for our inspection, 

 and presented this inscription : — 



I.O .M. 



OOH.I.AELIA. 



(The first iElian Cohort to Jupiter the best and greatest). The 



remainder was broken off. Here on the steep grassy bank above 



the river, and beneath the walls of Birdoswald, a fox-hunt was 



