FLOODS IN THE FINDHORN. 147 



regular circles round particular trees in the woods, cutting a 

 deep circular path in the ground. I never could make out 

 the object of this manoeuvre, but the state of the ground 

 proves that the animals must have run round and round the 

 tree for hours together. 



Tormented by midges and ticks, the bucks often wander 

 restlessly through the woods at this season, uttering their 

 bark-like cry ; so like indeed is this sound to the bark of a 

 dog, that it often deceives an unaccustomed ear. Of all 

 torments produced by insects I can conceive nothing much 

 worse than the attack carried on by the myriads of midges 

 which swarm towards evening in the woods, particularly 

 where the soil is at all damp. For a certain time the smoke 

 of a cigar or pipe protects one ; but no human skin can 

 endure for any length of time the inexpressible irritation 

 produced by these insects. 



This month is not, generally speaking, favourable to the 

 angler. Salmon seem in most rivers to have given up 

 moving, and the trout fellow their example. Indeed the 

 rivers are at this period very subject to great changes, being 

 one day bright, clear, and very low ; and perhaps the next 

 flooded over bank and brae by some sudden and tremendous 

 thunder-storm in the higher grounds which renders the water 

 thick and turbid. The Findhorn is peculiarly subject to- 

 these rapid changes, flowing as it does for a great part of its 

 course through a mountainous, undrained, and uncultivated 

 country, surrounded by lofty and rugged heights, from the 

 clefts of which innumerable streams descend into the valley 

 of the Findhorn. This river, on any sudden and violent 

 storm of rain (fed as it is by so many burns), rises sometimes 

 almost instantaneously : and what a few minutes before was 

 a bright clear stream, fordable at all the shallower places, 

 suddenly becomes a turbid swollen torrent, which neither 

 man nor horse can cross. In those parts of the river where 

 the channel is narrow and confined between steep and over- 

 hanging rocks these sudden risings take place more rapidly 

 than in the lower parts near the sea, where the river has 

 room to spread itself out. 



One day towards the end of the month I went with my 

 two boys and a servant to shoot rabbits on the island formed 

 by the junction of the Findhorn and another stream near the 

 sea. The river was so low, in consequence of long-continued 

 dry weather, that we crossed it on foot at a shallow where 



