WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS 



wildest and most rugged rocks, and through the romantic 

 and shaded glens of the forests of Darnaway and Altyre, 

 the stream, as if exhausted, empties itself peaceably and 

 quietly into the Bay of Findhorn, a salt-water loch of 

 some four or five miles in length, entirely shut out by 

 different points of land from the storms which are so fre- 

 quent in the Moray Firth, of which it forms a kind of 

 creek. At low water this Bay becomes an extent of wet 

 sand, with the river Findhorn and one or two smaller 

 streams winding through it, till they meet in the deeper 

 part of the basin near the town of Findhorn, where there 

 is always a considerable depth of water, and a harbour for 

 shipping. 



From its sheltered situation and the quantity of food left 

 on the sands at low-water, the Bay of Findhorn is always 

 a great resort of wild-fowl of all kinds, from the swan to 

 the teal, and also of innumerable waders of every species; 

 while occasionally a seal ventures into the mouth of the 

 river in pursuit of salmon. The bay is separated from the 

 main water of the Firth by that most extraordinary and 

 peculiar range of country called the Sandhills of Moray, 

 a long, low range of hills formed of the purest sand, with 

 scarcely any herbage, excepting here and there patches of 

 bent or broom, which are inhabited by hares, rabbits, and 

 foxes. At the extreme point of this range is a farm of forty 

 or fifty acres of arable land, where the tenant endeavours 

 to grow a scanty crop of grain and turnips, in spite of the 

 rabbits and the drifting sands. From the inland side of the 

 bay stretch the fertile plains of Moray, extending from the 

 Findhorn to near Elgin in a continuous flat of the richest 



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