_MIDDLEBY._—To the south of Middleby Kirk, in the county of Dumfries, is a camp which is called in the district Burns, or Birrens. It occupies a low and sheltered situation, but possesses, notwithstanding, considerable natural capabilities of defence. The water of Mein washes the earthy scar which forms its southern margin, and the Middleby burn, which joins the Mein at the south-east angle of the camp, runs parallel to its eastern rampart. It appears, from the plan given in Roy’s Military Antiquities, to have been protected, in addition to its stone walls, on three sides by four earthen ramparts, with intervening ditches; and on the north, which was at once by nature the weakest, and the quarter most exposed to the attack of the enemy, by not fewer than six. The northern ramparts remain in nearly their original completeness, but the overflowings of the Mein on the south, the construction of a road on the east, and the operations of agriculture on the west, have destroyed the ramparts on these sides. A _procestrium_, or out-work, protected by its own ramparts, appears to have been appended to the west side of the original camp; or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, the suburban buildings, which were situated in this quarter were embraced by an additional fortification. In so exposed a situation, such a precaution would be highly proper. The field in which the _procestrium_ was, has been brought into cultivation, and a great number of carved stones, which were found in it, taken to Hoddam Castle. The corners of the camp are, as is usually the case, rounded; the four gateways are clearly discernible. The interior area of the station measures three acres and three-quarters. On the south side of the station a large vault, arched with stone, was laid open more than a century ago. Popular credulity has magnified it into an underground passage, which extended all the way to Burnswark; the people in the neighbourhood aver that they have known persons go a considerable way along it. The altars and sculptures found at this place are engraved and described, apparently with great accuracy, in Stuart’s Caledonia Romana. Amongst them is a stone tablet, bearing the words— IMP. CAESARI TRAIAN. LEG. SECVND. AVG. A piece of another, with the inscription— LEG. XX. VICT. The lamented author of this work says— With the exception of a brass coin of Germanicus, and the inscription containing the name of Hadrian, the greater part, if not all the antiquities found at Birrens, may be ascribed perhaps to the third or fourth century. The striking similarity of style and execution which exists between them and the bulk of those discovered in the north of England, of which the dates can be ascertained, is sufficient to stamp them as the productions of a period subsequent to the reign of Septimius Severus.—_Caledonia Romana_, 130.