NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BANKS OF THE TAY. 
53 
vided for the plants. This the river does in various ways. In the 
upper sections it builds up the low haughlands and stanners ; in the 
lower section it creates the rich marshland; in all three it has formed 
and is forming backwaters. All of them it irrigates and feeds. It is 
on these younger deposits, far more than on the older banks, that a 
rich flora occurs. The life history of the low haughlands, and of the 
stanners or stony islands, is essentially the same. A river, if left to 
itself, is perpetually, though more or less gradually, making alterations 
in its channel—eating into one bank, building up the other. Given 
a rapid current and a pebbly bed, the building up process consists at 
first in the formation of a mound of shingle, either attached to the 
bank or surrounded by the water; the foundation in the one case of 
the future haughland, in the other of the coming stanner. 
At first there is nothing but this bank of loose stones, liable to be 
swept by every flood, but for that very reason tending to increase. 
Then amongst the stones finer debris—smaller stones and sand, and 
perhaps a little vegetable matter—gets lodged, and now the place is 
ready to receive colonists in the shape of seeds and plants brought 
down by the stream. These obtain a foothold, and though many are 
doubtless swept away by the high floods of winter, yet a few are likely 
to remain and assist in retaining more debris. Year by year the plant 
colonists become more numerous and more permanent, the shingle 
begins to assume a closer appearance, greater facilities for the reten- 
ion of loose debris are afforded, and thus a greater height above the 
water is gradually attained, until only the higher floods inundate the 
surface. The sediment deposited by these floods, and the annual 
decay of the leaves and stems of the herbaceous plants, finally make 
a hwnus which covers up all traces of the shingly foundation, and 
enables the haughland or stanner to support a luxuriant vegetation, 
including trees and shrubs, or even to fit it for cultivation. In this 
condition it may remain for many years, but the chances are that, 
unless man interferes to protect it, and to keep the river to its bounds, 
the latter will undo all the work so gradually accomplished, and will 
remove the materials, but only to make new haughlands and stanners 
elsewhere. 
In Perth itself, and in its immediate vicinity, we have excellent 
examples' of the formation and destruction of haughlands and 
stanners. The Woody Island is an example of a stanner, which, after 
attaining a high pitch of perfection, is now in course of destruction. 
The great shingle bed on the Scone side of the river, opposite the 
the Woody Island, is a haughland in the earlier stages of its existence. 
An example of a stanner still nearer at hand is the island at the 
Bridge. In a map of the date 1774 no trace of this island is shown 
—of course it may have been omitted, but other details given in the 
