Botany of the Borders. $27 
it runs impatient in its rough channel. Hazle mingles with the 
willows, wild roses and brambles entangle the brake, a copsewood 
of sloe-thorn occupies the top of the bank, succeeded by a space 
covered by the braken ; and the opposite north bank bears a cover 
of the whin, gemmed with the herblets (Stellaria graminea, Orobus 
tuberosus, &c., &c.), which delight in its shelter, and run up amidst 
its branches. This is a pleasant spot, full of botanical riches ; and 
we leave it with regret, for the steep banks that succeed are planted 
with wood—with beech, elm, and plane-tree, and with a few Scotch 
firs. There is not much here to interest us; but as we emerge from 
_ the shade of this plantation, the banks nigh each other and their 
fronts become rocky and abrupt, and form a narrow passage through 
which the water must force itself. This it does in a rumbling 
fashion. It falls first over a linn about a yard in height into a cir- 
cular caldron of pure water; and then it hurries away in a troubled 
stream, leaving on one side a little gravelled edge, and running on the 
other under a projecting ledge. Ferns from both sides, and from 
every crevice, overhang the darkened chasm. Above, the polypody 
leans over the bank in a dark green fringe ; below, tufts of Aspidium 
lobatum project from under shelving rocks, and the little elegant 
Asplenia hang out their pretty fronds everywhere, and in a manner 
that no pencil can delineate. The lady-fern grows here in large 
tufts ; and the Aspidium dilatatum is sure to be looking out along: 
side of its narrow frondéd ally. The botanist lingers here long 
there is much for his study, and for his admiration. When at tondth 
he emerges from the gloom, he finds on one side an old quarry not 
without its peculiar interest. The bottom is rough, with broken 
stones grown over with docks and nettles; in a corner there is a 
thicket of sloe-thorn, with a glorious bed of Stellaria Holostea ; at 
the base of the rock’s face are tufts of the male fern and Reins 
dilatatum ; and the chinks of the face itself tufts of the blue-bell, 
the stately fox-glove, the showy viper’s bugloss and a hanging bush 
of the whin, one mass of gold in its season. Follow the burn no fur- 
ther, for here it loses the dean, and pursues its future course through 
cultivated fields that vary their character yearly at man’s will.” 
No wonder, then, that the man who penned such like trans- 
eripts on Nature’s solitudes, should love the modest drooping 
wood-sorrel above all other flowers!! In our author’s de- 
scription of Horncliff, and of the Berwickshire Naturalist Club 
meeting at Etal, we obtain a still more éxtensive insight 
into the more characteristic aspects of, the vegetation of the 
Borders under varying circumstances, as well as of the genial 
character of the meetings of that club, which has been the 
parent of all similar societies in Great Britain. 
