450 Report of Meetings for 1889. By Dr. J. Hardy. 



The Ring-ouzels were singing. "We were told that the game- 

 keeper shoots every one of these interesting birds that he comes 

 across. Their scent misleads the dogs in grouse-shooting ; a 

 very poor excuse for destroying them. Other birds noted on the 

 Breamish during the day were the Cuckoo, Larks, Lapwings, 

 Pipits, Wheat-ears, Whin-chats, and Sand-pipers in the lower 

 reaches. Swifts were far abroad ; House Martins and other 

 Swallows at Branton. 



The Linhope burn descends from a grassy upland depression 

 or meadow, with two or three stunted trees midway up its course, 

 and falls, open to the day, suddenly down a gap over a ledge of 

 brown porphyritic rocks, with only a few air-sparkles to mark 

 the commotion, into a dark peaty-brown basin, which has a 

 dwarf bush of scrubby Salix aurita at its lower outlet. The 

 estimated height of the fall is 48 feet. It is remarkably tame in 

 summer, although in winter it lifts up a hoarse voice in the 

 wilderness, and is then known as the " Rowtin Linn." Oak 

 fern grows among the rocks. On the opposite hill-side, in a 

 wooded ravine descending from the Hedgehope back-bogs, were 

 two dashing white linns flashing in the light, much finer objects 

 than the naked Linhope. This is on Hetburn; a bare boggy grej r - 

 tinted ground accompanies it far up the hill-side. The united 

 streams turn in a different direction, almost at right angles, to 

 form the ravine in which lie the lower linns. Stanedrop or 

 Stander-hope — a projecting boss of rock, rising out of a green 

 base, stands up the "slack." Far off is Cairn Hill with its 

 conical black peak. The Thieves' or Salters' road passed 

 between it and Usway Ford ; and lower down the country it 

 crosses Chester Hill behind Prendsvick. At the shepherd's 

 house, and the shooting-box, a bridge crosses the Linhope burn. 

 There were as yet no ferns on the bridge. Pyrethrum- Parthenium 

 grows on the walls ; a garden escape. 



During the day thunder clouds encircled the hills all round 

 us, and we repeatedly heard the peals, like explosions of artillery. 

 Lower down the country, a heavy day's rain was experienced, 

 but we saw only the outskirts of it, in front of us at Brandon. 

 Linhope is rather dangerous ground in thunder storms ; two 

 days afterwards a lamb was killed by lightning at Ewartly 

 Shank. 



As we returned after passing the Greave's Ash camps, two or 

 three tombs were remarked on the roadside near the wall of the 



