REVIEWS. 
49 
advantageous to carry bee-hives to the moors, as is practised in several places 
in the district. There are few flowers which yield more honey, and since they are 
twenty-fold more numerous in the same space than any others, the bees collect their 
stores with rapidity— 
‘ Upon thy sloping banks and lonely glens, 
Thy wide-extended moors, and mountains hoar, 
My country, many a beauteous flower beneath 
The eye of morning smiles in gracefulness 
And beauty; but, the chief o’er all the rest, 
Old Scotland’s “ symbol dear,” which he, the Bard 
Of Coila, hath immortalized, and spared 
The inspiring emblem waving in the breeze, 
I love to mark; nor less the heather flower, 
Of scent delicious, and inviting still 
The eye to rest upon its beauty, spread 
For miles athwart the moor, where wild fowl haunt, 
And where the industrious bee collects her sweets 
Medicinal, and ministers alike 
To luxury’s claims, and to the comforts which 
Sometimes descend to cheer the poor man’s heart.’— Crease. 
The plant appears to be affected, in its secretion of honey, by the nature of the soil 
on which it grows. Around Wooler there is a sandstone and a porphyritic soil. 
The bees on the latter produce considerably greater quantities of honey than those 
pastured upon the former. Heather honey is of a brown colour, and has a peculiar 
flavour—which raises it in the estimation of many. 
* The tiny heath-flowers now begin to blow; 
The russet moor assumes a richer glow; 
The powdery bells, that glance in purple bloom, 
Fling from their scented cups a sweet perfume; 
While from their cells, still moist with morning dew, 
The wandering wild bee sips the honied glue; 
In wider circle wakes the liquid hum, 
And far remote the mingled murmurs come.’— Leyhen. 
Those shepherds who have passed their youth amongst the Lammermuirs have 
their gaits so affected by traversing the rough heath, that, for the rest of their lives, 
they are accustomed, in walking, to lift their feet higher than other people. This 
practice is called by the lowlanders ‘heather-lamping.’ In a long-continuous storm 
it is customary to drive sheep to some heathery spot, as the snow is usually drifted 
from the moors, and the heather lies bare, offering a welcome pasturage. 
“ That the Piets knew the art of distilling an ale from heather, some antiquaries 
consider a myth, and some a fact; and of the latter some maintain that there exist 
remains of the breweries in which this ale was made (see Wilson’s Archaeology of 
Scotland, p. 76). The secret died with the people; and the tradition of how it 
died so worthily is well told by Mr. Chambers, as it still lingers amidst the Lam¬ 
mermuirs, “ the last ground contested by the Scots and Piets.” 
We have already alluded to the meetings of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ 
Club, which, like the “Friday Club” celebrated in “Lord Jeffrey’s Life,” 
owed its success to the result of some negatives, as its members were 
troubled by no written laws, no motions, no disputes, no ballots, no fines, no 
business of any kind, except what was managed by one of ourselves as 
secretary. Under Veronica chamoedrys we have a sketch of one of its 
meetings, which we extract, trusting that the pleasing picture it presents 
may tempt the speedy formation of similar clubs in districts where none 
yet exist:— 
