JULY. FLOODS IN THE FINDHORN. 257 



one ; but no human skin can endure for any 

 length of time the inexpressible irritation pro- 

 duced by these insects. 



This month is not, generally speaking, favour- 

 able to the angler. Salmon seem in most rivers to 

 have given up moving, and the trout follow 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 pecu- 

 liarly subject to these rapid changes, flowing as it 

 does for a great part of its course through a moun- 

 tainous, undrained, and uncultivated country, sur- 

 rounded 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 instantan- 

 eously; 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 overhanging rocks these sudden 

 risings take place more rapidly than in the lower 



VOL. i. s 



