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



green beds of Polygonum amphihium. Rumex palustris was not 

 looked for. Outside, in the plantation, were thickets of well- 

 grown wild Raspberries, with delicious berries, a sprinkling of 

 Foxgloves, and some stately wood-grasses. Except the Ducks, 

 and a few lingering Wheat-ears on the wall-tops, there were no 

 birds visible anywhere. Afterwards with Mr Selby and Major 

 Browne,and the Rev. R.H.Williamson, we reached our destination 

 which was the Border line, by the public Yetholm Road. The 

 fields on both sides were well cultivated, showing good Barley, 

 Wheat occasionally, Oat and Turnip crops ; the face of the 

 country being embellished also with thriving plantations and 

 shapely solitary trees; and beyond the level gradually sloping 

 upwards to pasture hills with green tops, without crags. The 

 air was balmy, without wind, and there were no tormenting flies. 

 The way-side plants sometimes indicate the nature of the soil, 

 and the character of its Flora. There were here a few Brambles 

 and Honeysuckles in the hedges ; and Broom was commencing 

 to spring up on the banks. The way-side flowers were "Blue 

 Bells," and Zig-zag Clover ; but not much of either. Nearer 

 Shotton, the brilliant Blue Geranium ( G. pratense) became very 

 prevalent both on the road-sides and in the old grass pastures ; 

 and the Common Hemlock and Mallows showed unmistakably 

 the former or present proximity of human habitations, as they 

 had already done near Mindrum Station and Paston village. 

 We had now reached the extensive haugh land between Shotton 

 and the Beaumont. Old trees, clustered or single, marked 

 obsolete steadings or houses. In a droughty year this haugh 

 land is liable to burning, being full of irregular gravel patches, 

 and old burn and river channels, concealed by a thin covering of 

 soil. We went on to Yetholm Mains, which is situated on a flat 

 on the margin of Halterburn or Elterburn, where the bridge 

 crosses. The name Halterburn ma} r or may not be derived from 

 St. Etheldreda's Chapel, which stood on the stream higher up. 

 The burn comes down in a deep gash in the back of a high green 

 hill, which has in it two slacks, the western one of which carries 

 up Halterburn and the boundary wall between England and 

 Scotland, about the proper position of which there were numerous 

 contentions three centuries ago, but which is now very prominent 

 in its renewed present condition, both on this side and beyond 

 the Beaumont between Venchen and Shotton, etc., lands. At 

 the bottom near the stream, a thorn hedge now marks the 



