64 Report of Meetings for 1890. By Dr J. Hardy. 



crowds of Primroses they pi'oduce, varied by the gay blossoms 

 of the Myosotis st/lvatica, white and blue flowered, which has 

 probably been sown here. Geranium sylvaticum, as it is all along 

 the railway hereabouts, was very profuse ; but G. pratense was 

 in lesser quantity. There were also Geum rivah and G. urhanum, 

 Mercurialis perennis, Ajuga reptans, Crepis paludosa, Allium ursinum, 

 Rumex viridis, and the gaudy Lychnis dioica. In the Hawick 

 Archaeological Trans., Cardamine hirsuta is recorded as being of 

 great luxuriance in the woods here, and Erysimum alliaria as 

 frequent. The Eev. James Duncan gives Vicia sylvatica, and 

 says Rieracium aurantiacum is naturalised at Stobs. (Jeffrey's 

 Hist, of Rox., vol. IV.) We saw abundance of the Melancholy 

 Plume Thistle ( Carduus heterophyllus) near the brink of the river. 

 Other plants or shrubs, recorded elsewhere as growing near the 

 ground we traversed are Prunus Padus on the Slitrig and its 

 tributaries ; Comarum palmtre on the peat bogs ; Galium mollugo ; 

 Vihurnum opulus, Solatium dulcamara, Malva sylvestris, Betonica 

 officinalis, etc. 



Passing out of this shady retreat by the south lodge, there are 

 fragments of an ancient wood of hazels, birches, and oaks, some 

 of them ivy-mantled, on the steep somewhat craggy bank on the 

 left hand of the road as we ascend. Here are native Euonymus 

 Europeeus bushes ; and among the herbage Nepeta clinopodium. 



We must pause to notice Cog's Mill, old Stobs Castle, and 

 Earlside. Cog's Mill is near where Stobs Castle stood. Mr 

 Walter Deans has furnished me with a traditionary account of 

 its site and its history, which is valuable, now that the old gen- 

 eration who knew it has passed away. Mr Deans says the 

 present structure was constructed by the present Baronet's grand- 

 father. — " The old place stood in a field to the south of, and 

 above Cog's Mill. There is not a vestige of it remaining except 

 the spring which supplied the place with water. My father, who 

 was born in 1768, remembered the old house. He told me it was 

 ' a twae storey heigh thack-house,' {i.e. covered with straw.) 

 Before it was built it was contemplated to place it at Hallrule on 

 the Rule Water estate, but after the foundations were taken out, 

 the work was abandoned, and the present Stobs was erected on 

 the Slitrig, nearly a mile from the old place. The proprietor had 

 not sufl&cient means to defray the expense, but he borrowed the 

 deficiency from one of the tenants, Mr Pott, farmer of Penchrise, 

 on the understanding that Mr Pott was to receive a long lease of 



