The Scottish Naturalist. 339 



" The noble town from Rossie Mount doth claim 

 Its present, as from heaven its ancient name. 

 Near it's a hill by which a river glycles, 

 Both which to it delicious fare provydes : 

 The hill doth flocks, salmon the flood brings forth, 

 Or what to Nero's ponds was of more worth, 

 The lillies on the banks refresh the night, 

 The roses on the hills afford delight." 



In our day we look in vain from the Backsands even to the 

 water mouth for the lillies, and we search for the roses among the 

 bent hills with as little success. Fortunately, the flocks and the 

 salmon are still left to us in abundance ; and we must admit that, 

 through the exertions of our late lamented Provost, Montrose is 

 fast being converted, if not into a mount, at all events into some- 

 thing very like a garden of roses. 



Jervis and others, again, favour the view that the name is 

 derived from the Gaelic, Mbine ros, corrupted to Munros, and 

 then to Montrose. Mbine means a peat moss or bog, and ros, a 

 promontory. The ros or promontory is sufficiently descriptive ; 

 but the moss or bog is quite as much at variance with existing 

 conditions as the roses. Here, however, we must ask the archaeo- 

 logist to take the geologist into his councils. True it is we have 

 no bogs on our peninsula now-a-days ; but I hope to show you 

 by-and-bye that during an interglacial period of high temperature, 

 immediately after the elevation of the glacial sea bottom, the 

 promontory, on the west side at all events, was a moss or bog. 

 Here, then, we have, perhaps, got to the origin of the Mbine ros 

 theory. I must, however, not omit to point out to you some 

 important ethnological inductions which are involved in its adop- 

 tion. We must, for instance, admit that man, if he existed 

 during this interglacial period, spoke Gaelic, a fact which would 

 be highly gratifying to Professor Blackie ; we must also bear in 

 mind that after this bog age, the land was again depressed to a 

 lower level, so that the moss sank under the sea. Neither history 

 nor tradition tells us anything of human affairs at this time, but 

 judging by our own instincts, we believe that the " Gable-endies" of 

 the period betook themselves to the high grounds of Rossie and 

 Sunnyside and even to Brechin and Caterthun. 



Though in later times Montrose has been able to keep its head 

 above water, the present generation should inspire their offspring 



