44© Birds of the Great Glen. [Sess. 



in consequence the surrounding parts are wet and swampy, 

 clumps of alder and rushes springing up here and there 

 amidst the erratic wanderings of the rivers, like bits of dry 

 ground in a peat-moss, adding not a little to the picturesque 

 aspect. Here, then, we have an area suited to the habits 

 of the coot, the moor-hen, the teal, the mallard, and many 

 other aquatic families, besides the sedge-warbler, black-headed 

 bunting, and others to be mentioned later on. 



The valley is divided into two sections, the glen and the 

 strath. The glen proper runs westward for about nine miles 

 to Corrimony, where it begins to dip down into the romantic 

 Strath Glass with its magnificent background of high moun- 

 tains, including the giants Mam Soul and Ben Attow. The 

 strath, again, with its richly cultivated farms, interspersed 

 with dense clumps of wood, only stretches for about four 

 miles to the base of a line of swelling hills that gradually rise 

 in brown moorland, ultimately to culminate in Mealfourvounie, 

 the highest mountain in the Loch Ness basin, and forming a 

 portion of the extensive deer-forest of the Seafield family. It 

 is currently reported that this Mealfourvounie is the first land 

 sighted by mariners when entering the Moray Firth from 

 Scandinavia, but whether this is a fact or a tradition prompted 

 by the vanity of the natives is more than I can tell. Taken 

 as a whole, both glen and strath form a most extraordinary 

 combination of different kinds of scenery. In the low 

 grounds we have the well-tilled fields of the apparently suc- 

 cessful farmer, saved, however, from monotony by the scat- 

 tered trees and thickets. On the slopes of the hills, at many 

 parts, may be seen the curiously irregular crofting plots, run- 

 ning upwards for several hundred feet, divided from each other 

 by, in some cases, dilapidated lichen-covered dykes, speaking 

 to great amount of labour and expense in reclaiming what 

 must at. one time have been virgin soil, covered in all likeli- 

 hood with peat bog or forest. Again the eye rests on great 

 ranges of natural wood, hazel or birch, that fringe the rivers 

 and run up for varying distances on the hill-sides, only to 

 give place to the more symmetrical but decidedly less pictur- 

 esque plantations of firs, which of late provident proprietors 

 have found it to their advantage to cultivate. Far above the 

 woods is a vast expanse of barren ground covered with heather, 



