EDITOR'S PREFACE 



and the next few years found St John as tenant of various 

 places within a moderate distance of Inverness, settHng at 

 length at I nvererne, a couple of miles north of Forres in the 

 "laigh" of Moray. Now Moray not only contains a fauna 

 quite as rich and varied as that of Sutherland, but it also 

 enjoys a climate of singular clemency. It is traversed by 

 the Findhorn, one of the most romantic rivers of Scotland 

 — "the rapid and glorious Findhorn," as St John himself 

 styles it — and presents a series of remarkable contrasts in 

 landscape, from the desolation of the Monadh-liath to the 

 fertile vales, wherein are grown such crops, in its deep 

 woodlands such timber, as may not be excelled elsewhere 

 in the United Kingdom. 



Here, then, St John foundhimselfamidscenesandsounds 

 such as his soul loved. Here, satisfied with his lot and lull- 

 ed by the majestic routine of the seasons, he might have 

 spent his days and passed away without leaving anyrecord 

 of the varied knowledge he had acquired or enriching 

 English literature with works which, though in the last de- 

 gree unpretentious and undogmatic, have charmed thou- 

 sands of readers, revealing to them many of the choicest 

 secrets of wild nature. It was by a lucky accident that he 

 was led to cast the result of his quiet observation into a 

 permanent form — how truly permanent is proved by the 

 issue of this, the tenth edition of his earliest work. 



It is to the late Cosmo Innes, himself no mean contri- 

 butor to literature, that is due the credit of persuading the 

 ex-clerk of the Treasury to enrol in the motley army of 

 authors. He has left a description of how their acquaint- 

 ance was formed, and of what followed thereon. 

 ix 



