CHAP, xxui.] SCENERY OF THE PINDHORN. 187 



red-deer. The former is frequently to be seen either sitting on 

 the trunk of a fallen birch-tree or feeding on the juniper-berries, 

 while the beautiful roebuck (the most perfect in its symmetry of 

 all deer) is seen either grazing on some grassy spot at the water's 

 edge, or wading through a shallow part of the river, looking 

 round when half way through as timid and coy as a bathing 

 nymph. When disturbed by the appearance of a passer by, lie 

 bounds lightly and easily up the steep bank of the river, and 

 after standing on the summit for a moment or two to make out 

 the extent of the danger, plunges into the dark solitudes of the 

 forest. 



On the left side of the river, as it proceeds towards the sea, is 

 a succession of most beautiful banks and heights, fringed with 

 the elegant fern and crowned with juniper, which grows to a 

 very great size, twisting its branches and fantastic roots in the 

 quaintest forms and shape's imaginable over the surface of the 

 rocks. The lovely weeping-birch is everywhere, and about 

 Coidmony are groves of magnificent beech and other forest- 

 trees. On the opposite side are the wooded hills and heights of 

 Kelugas, a spot combining every description of beauty. The 

 Findhorn here receives the tributary waters of the Dure, a burn, 

 or rather river, not much inferior in size and beauty to the main 

 river. Hemmed in by the same kind of birch-grown banks and 

 precipitous rocks, every angle of the Findhorn river presents a 

 new view and new beauty, and at last one cannot restrain the 

 exclamation of "Surely there is no other river in the world so 

 beautiful." At Logic the view of the course of the river, and 

 the distance seen lur up the glen till it is gradually lost in a suc- 

 cession of purple mountains, is worth u halt of some time to 

 enjoy. The steep banks opposite Logie, clothed with every 

 variety of wood, ure lovely, and give a new variety to the scene 

 as we enter on the forests of Darnaway and Altyre. The wood- 

 pigeon coos and breeds in every nook and corner of the woods, 

 and towards evening the groves seem alive with the song of 

 blackbirds and thrushes, varied now by the crow of the cock 

 pheasant, a>< he suns himself in all his glittering beauty on the 

 dry and sheltered banks of the river. 



Still for many miles is the river shut in by extensive woods 

 and overhung by splendid fir, larch, tad other trees, while the 



