In course of this walk it is easy to make quite a large botanical collection. You may have the _Geum urbanum_ with its small yellow flower and fragrant root with scent of cloves. This was formerly used as a tonic for consumption and ague, and being infused was often used by ladies for the complexion, and for the removal of freckles. Then there is the blue meadow or cranesbill, _Geranium pratense_, and herb Robert, _Geranium Robertianum_, and the sweet vernal grass and the wood mellica. There is also the moschatel, or musk crowfoot, so called from its musky fragrance, and the wood spurge, and ground ivy, a plant which, when dry, has a pleasant odour, and which in country places is sometimes still made into tea, and supposed to be good for coughs and colds. We give these only as a few specimens to whet the appetite of those who carry a vasculum and rejoice in a herbarium. On leaving Ballagioch, for the sake of variety, we shape our course north-west in the direction of Moorhouse, and soon, after crossing the Earn, reach the Kilmarnock road. The railway has shorn this road of all its former glory, when fifteen packhorses could be seen regularly travelling between Glasgow and the west country, and when the Kilmarnock carrier drove along it his six milk-white ponies of diminutive size, but possessed of much mettle. Our walk to Clarkston _via_ Mearns is much about the same length as the route we took from Clarkston to Ballagioch _via_ Eaglesham, and at last we reach the city somewhat tired, yet highly delighted with our day’s outing. KAIM HILL. Now that everybody is out of town, on Saturday at least, and every place in the guide book is as well known as the Trongate or Jamaica Street, it is something to discover a hill everybody has not been to the top of, and which is not in Black or Murray. Such a hill is that which stands between Fairlie and Kilbirnie, overlooking Fairlie Roads (that is, the Clyde between Fairlie and the Greater Cumbrae) on the one side, and the valley of the Garnock on the other. It is best to make the ascent from Fairlie, which can be reached either by Wemyss Bay from the Central, or by Ardrossan from St. Enoch’s. At the south or far end of the railway platform a path will be found, on crossing the line, which leads to the farm of Southannan. There the road to the left should be taken, across a nicely wooded burn, which should be followed up till a wall is reached; which wall should be followed till we come to the heathery ground. From that the course is, without any track, in a somewhat south-westerly direction, now over a tiny stream, now through a stretch of heather, and now past the side of some large old red sandstone or piece of trap, perhaps 20 feet long, which are the chief rocks of this hill range.