SCOTS MAGAZINE,

AND

Edinburgh Literary Miscellany,

FOR MARCH 1809:

With a View of SMALLHOLM TOWER.

1

t

T

April 25. Princess Mary born, (1776.)

THE

Scots Magazine,

AND

EDINBURGH LITERARY MISCELLANY,

FOR MARCH 1809.

Proceedings of the Wernerian Natural
History Society.

Description of SMALLHOLM TOWER. SMALLHOLM TOWER lies in a parish of the same name, on the road from Edinburgh to Kelso. It is si- A tuated on the northern boundary of Roxburghshire, about four miles northwest of Roxburgh, and nearly the same distance from Kelso. It is a high square building, surrounded by an outer wall, now ruinous. A morass and a precipice render it inaccessible on every side, except the west, where it may be approached by a steep and rocky path. The apartments are placed one above another, communicating by a narrow stair: on the roof are two bartizans, or platforms. It has two doors, or gates; the inner of wood, the outer of iron, separated from each other by the thickness of the wall, which is nine feet:It is built on a cluster of rocks, and from its elevated situation, is seen at a great distance, and serves even as a land-mark to guide vessels into Berwick. It is the property of Hugh Scott, Esq. of Harden.

This place is rendered interesting to poetical readers, by its having been the residence, in early life, of Mr Walter Scott, who has celebrated it in his " Eve of St John." Border Minstrelsy, III. 229. To it he probably alludes in the introduction to the third canto of Marmion :

Then rise those crags, that mountain
tower,
Which charm'd my fancy's wakening
hour, &c.

T the meeting of this Society, on the 11th March, Dr Yule read an interesting memoir on the natural order Gramineæ, withintroductory observations on monocotyledonous plants, in which he contrasted these with the dicotyledonous class, from the period of germination to the complete evolution of their stems. The Doctor is to continue the subject in a future paper. Captain Laskey laid before the Society a list of Scottish Testacea, as far as they have fallen under his own observation, with remarks on the new and rare species. Of the genus Chiton he enumerated 4 species; of Lepas, 3 species; Balanus, 6; Pholas, 4; Mya, 9, including 3 new species; of Ligula, (a lately constituted genus,) 7 species; Solen 6; Tellina 15, with a new species, named by Colonel Montagu, T. Laskeyi; Cardium 10; Mactra 6; Donax 3; Venus 23, including 9 new species; Chama, 1 species, Ch. cor, taken alive in the Frith of Forth; Arca 6; Pecten 6; Ostrea 1; Anomia 4; Mytilus 11, Pinna 1; Nautilus 3; Cypræa 1; Bulla 13, including 2 new species; Voluta 8, 4 of them new; Buccinum 8; Strombus 2; Murex 23, comprehending the rare carinatus, and 3 new ones; Trochus 4; Turbo 32, 5 new; Helix 17; Nerita 7; Haliotis 1; Patella 11; Dentalium 2; Serpttla 7; Vermiculum 3. This is the most