Eeport of Meetings for 1881. By Jas. Hardy. 489 



the buzzard ; the raven ; and the king--fisher. " The osprey made 

 a short visit this spring to St. Mary's Loch and Loch Skene, 

 where formerly it used to build on a rocky island which rises a 

 few feet above the waters of this desolate and lonely mountain 

 tarn." 



"We passed and re-passed near the entrance to the grounds, the 

 spot where Lucy, whose story has been so pathetically sung by 

 Sir Walter Scott's friend, William Laidlaw, " wonned i' the glen 

 a' the simmer." Adjacent to it, as we were told, although scarce- 

 ly crediting it at the instant, lived once Captain Porteous, whom 

 the Edinburgh mob murdered— Sept. 7, 1736— in an outburst of 

 national fury. But I am informed that by the older generation 

 in this locality he is said to have been born at old or Easter Glen. 

 In support of the statement the following evidence is from the 

 Statistical Account of Peeblesshire, 1845. 



" Tradition affirms that Captain Porteous was born in Easter Glen in 

 this Parish." " Porteous when a lad was like other boys of his own age 

 addicted to mischief and practical joking. One day he unluckily hap- 

 pened to kill a hen which belonged to an old woman who resided in one 

 of the cottages adjacent to his father's. On seeing her favourite deprived 

 of life, the wrath of the grandam was kindled. She vowed the most hor- 

 rible vengeance, and among other things which she is reported to have 

 uttered, she declared that there would be more people present at his death 

 than there were feathers on her hen." 



On returning to Innerleithen the company went to see the well, 

 now called St. Eonan's, from Sir Walter Scott's novel of that 

 name, but originally the " Doo Well," the pigeons having resorted 

 to drink of the waters of what was little better than a puddle, 

 until it acquired celebrity. It is much less resorted to now than 

 formerly. 



There was no time to spare to visit the British camp at Caer- 

 lee, although had we known the ground better it might have been 

 arranged to overtake it also. On the camps of Peeblesshire I had 

 a letter from Dr. William Chambers of Glenormiston, which I 

 have great pleasure in quoting. Dr. Chambers after saying that 

 he would be glad to give to the Club any special information in 

 his power, proceeds to mention what he had done in his "His- 

 tory of Peeblesshire," in which there is a tolerably complete list 

 of British camps in the county, including that at Caerlee, half of 

 which is within his property. " 1 took great pains," he contin- 

 ues, "to analyse the character of these camps, and came to the 

 conclusion that for the most part they originated as defensible 



