Report of Meetings for 18S5. By Jas. Hardy. 87 



of " Rest-and-be-thankful " spot, by any of my friends who have 

 accompanied me thus far, where to sit down and have luncheon, 

 following therein my example on my first visit. On that occasion 

 I followed the dean to its upper termination. Hereafter it 

 becomes a portion of the hill pastures. Farther up there was a 

 cliff, muffled round the top with Lady's mantle springing from 

 its chinks. Then appeared a second porphyritic dike, and a 

 second mountain-ash ; and then a third dike and a third mountain- 

 ash of ampler growth than the preceding two. On this the apices 

 of the twigs, showed the leaf-buds contracted and shrivelled 

 up as if done by a Psylla; perhaps Ps. Sorbi, which I have 

 only seen as yet near a waterfall at Harthope Linn, on Cheviot. 

 Proceeding onward there was a tall abrupt rock like a wall end, 

 hung round the eaves with a double garland of Rubus saxatilis. 

 Then white cushions of Sphagnum acutifolium were pushed in from 

 the mossy margins ; and bits of conglomerate rose in ruins, 

 separate from any continuous strata, as if thrown down at random 

 and left forlorn. The mosses on these were the black-looking 

 Grimmia apocarpa, the silken Leskea sericea, both betokening 

 great dryness, and the bright Bryum crudum. Then a bog 

 usurped the entire bottom, and divers earthen hillocks rose in 

 succession ; and the glen winds farther and farther on towards 

 the unknown, becoming lower and lower in its banks on either 

 side. It then weakens itself by throwing out an arm, but still 

 maintains its interest, as there is a water-fall in prospect. I 

 expected Hypnum ochraceum to be the moss over which the 

 slender rivulet trickled, but it was only the lurid Hypnum rusci- 

 folium. There was, however, a novelty in Marchantia hemisphcerica. 

 Myosotis repens now grows in the burn bottom, accompanied by 

 Caltha palustris. Here the missel thrush was seen. The burn 

 again became sub-divided and terminated at last in a spritty 

 boggy strother, which has much Dicranum squarrosum in the sheep- 

 drains. Looking over to the other side of the ridge, the deep 

 sunk glens that contribute to form the Monynut water break 

 from a wide heathery waste ; beyond these rise Spartleton, and 

 the high black heights beyond Priestlaw ; and there is an 

 extensive outlook to Northumberland and" Roxburghshire. 



I have omitted several common plants, but Sedum villosum 

 deserves record from above Aikengall shepherd's house. 



Nearly all these ravines are so narrow and deep that when 

 viewed from above or from Blackcastle hill, they are only percep- 



