birns

On a search of the farm, no fewer than thirty-three score of sheep belonging to various individuals were found, all bearing the condemnatory O above the original birns; and it was remarked that there was not a single ewe returned to Grieston, the farm on the opposite bank of the Tweed, which did not minny her lambs -- that is, assume the character of mother towards the offspring from which she had been separated.

Anecdotes of Dogs Edward Jesse 1824

_Birnie_, birnie ground is where thick heath has been burnt, leaving the birns, or unconsumed stalks, standing up sharp and stubley.

The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham Robert Burns 1777

Nae birns, briers, or breekens ga'e trouble to me.

The gentle shepherd : a Scots pastoral comedy 1812

Page view page image: the fire birns down and the stones are sufficiently heated, the stones are so arranged as to form a tolerable level surface, the sturgeon which had been previously cut into large fletches is now laid on the hot stones; a parsel of small boughs of bushes is next laid on and a second course of the sturgeon thus reP [e] ating alternate layers of sturgeon and boughs untill the whole is put on which they design to cook. it is next covered closely with matts and water is poared in such manner as to run in among the hot stones and the vapor arrising being confined by the mats, cooks the fish. the whole process is performed in an hour, and the sturgeon thus cooked is much better than either boiled or roasted.

Original journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806 1904

"I'll try, my lord: it's the business o 'ilka man, whaur he can, to lowse the weichty birns, an' lat the forfouchten gang free.

Malcolm George MacDonald 1864