410 Dr George Johnston on the 
“ Digitalis purpurea. Fox-glove or rather Folk’s-glove, 
viz., the gloves of the ‘good people;’ witches’ thimbles; 
deadman’s bells ; Scotch mercury ; wild mercury, common : 
abundant in the north, east, and west of the county of 
Berwick, in the greywacké district ; less common, and even 
rare in the sandstone districts ; often very ornamental in 
deans, and on rocky ledges that overhang the deep pools of 
our brattling burns : 
‘I’ve lingered oft by rockydells, 
Where streamlets wind with murmuring din, 
And marked the fox-glove’s Barge bells 
Hang nodding o’er the dimpled lin.’ 
This plant is one of the most powerful ingredients used as 
‘bath’ for sheep, and some shepherds object to its use, for 
they say it blackens the wool very much. The leaves afford 
a medicine of great energy and value; and before this was 
known to physicians, the fox-glove, or fox-tree, was frequently 
used by the bold country quack, not always with impunity. 
(See Dalzell’s Darker Superstitions, page 113.) About 
Greenlaw, the plant, from its stateliness, bears the elegant 
name of the King’s-elwand : 
‘ Straight as the fox-glove, ere her bells disclose.’ 
«The flowers were once applied to the purpose of caps, 
by the troops of fairies that did inhabit our deans and sylvan 
retreats ; now, our little girls glove their fingers with them, 
putting them on the top of each other in a pyramid to over- 
flowing, and they call them ladies’ thimbles. Boys inflate 
them by blowing into the bell, and then they crack them by 
a smart stroke. They also suck the honey at the base of the 
flower. Tempted by this nectar, the bee enters deep within 
the corolla, where, being imprisoned, it buzzes about with 
vexation and rage,’’—then follows some beautiful lines from 
the prelude to Wordsworth’s Retrospect. 
In addition to these longer extracts, many a little gem- 
like expression might be copied from the work at large, the 
errors of other authors are corrected with freedom, yet with 
kindness; praise is freely accorded where itis due. ‘The short 
biographies of Dr Thomas Penny, the Rev. Andrew Baird, 
Messrs Bruce and Mitchell, most of whom were the author’s 
