88 . MISS CONSTANCE A. HINXMAN ON 
scenery to Aberlour, where the stream flows beneath the 
steep rocky scaurs of Wester Elchies, hung with birch and 
gean-trees, while on the right stretches a belt of highly- 
cultivated arable land. From Aberlour to the sea, the great 
river, swelled by the waters of many affluents, large and 
small, swings back and forth across a wide, fertile valley 
with the stroke of a mighty pendulum—now washing the 
foot of the oak-hung crag of Craigellachie, then to the right 
again, past the grassy slopes and luxuriant beech-woods of 
Arndilly, and through the rocky pool of Sourden to the long 
bridge at Fochabers. 
A short distance below Fochabers, the river-bed spreads 
out into a wide delta of shingle, through which its waters 
find their way to the sea at Garmouth by an intricate 
system of channels that shift with every flood. 
The shingle banks are, in places, covered with a dense 
growth of willows and other shrubs. These thickets are 
thronged in late summer and early autumn with family 
parties of summer warblers, preparing for their migratory 
flight across the North Sea. 
So far, we have brietly followed the course of the Spey 
itself, but it remains to give a glance at the character of its 
principal affluents, and of the country through which they 
pass. The chief of these, on the left bank, are the Calder 
and Dulnan, both bringing down the waters from the wild 
moorland country of the Monadhliath Range. On the right 
bank are the Truim and Feshie, already mentioned; the 
Tromie, draining the hills of the Gaick Forest ; and the Druie. 
The last-named is formed by the junction of two streams, 
the Beinne, that issues from Loch Eunich, beneath the 
precipices of Brae Riach and Sgoran Dubh, and the Luineag 
from Loch Morlich. These streams flow through Rothie- 
murchus and Glenmore, where are to be seen the last 
survivals of the ancient forest—groups of stately, wide- 
spreading pine-trees towering over their younger brethren. 
One special feature of this locality is that the undergrowth 
is in large measure composed of juniper bushes, some of 
which have attained a remarkable size. 
Lastly comes the Avon, the most important of the tribu- 
‘taries, its own course being forty miles in length. It finds 
