302 APPENDIX. 



Although we have here mentioned the principal hills, 

 it must not be understood that the rest of the county is 

 quite flat, — far from it : the whole of the south-eastern 

 parts, extending along the Caithness march and from the 

 sea to the centre of the county, consists of moderately high 

 hilly ground, highest near the sea, and gradually lowering 

 in height inland until it ends in those large lochs and flat 

 wet flows out of which the principal rivers of the county 

 rise. This ground contains the most productive grouse- 

 moors of Sutherland, some of them rivalling the best that 

 Perthshire or Inverness -shire can show, though of late 

 years disease, from which they are still suffering, has made 

 sad havoc amongst the birds. 



We have mentioned the word " flow " several times. 

 A flow is a wet tract of ground, generally flat, though 

 such can exist on a gentle slope where there has been no 

 artificial drainage ; this is covered by a short kind of 

 grass, which in autumn assumes nearly the colour of a 

 red-deer, hence its trivial name " deer-hair grass." Scattered 

 through this tract are small ponds locally called " bru- 

 lochans," some deep, others shallow : in the former a 

 pair of red-throated divers may often be seen, and their 

 nest found close to the edge, nor are they particular as 

 to the size of the lochans, as we have seen them in one 

 only about 25 yards long by about 15 broad. In the 

 shallow pools, great bunches of the pretty "cotton grass" 

 grow, and this is also scattered all through the flow dis- 

 trict. This grass, which is locally termed by the shepherds 

 " mossing," is of great importance to the sheep farmers, 

 because, being the first grass that starts up in spring, it is 

 of great service in helping the sheep to get into condition 

 after the long winter. These flows are here and there 

 intersected by deep, black, peaty water-courses, and these 

 lead into the sluggish burns (whose edges are covered with 

 good grass), which in turn meander lazily along, until, 

 as they approach their outlets, they gain more rapidity 

 and vigour. In the drier parts of the flow, heather grows, 

 much intermixed with reindeer moss and different sorts 

 of lichens. Grouse inhabit these drier places, and on 



