NAIRN. 9*7 



July Sth. Went to set lines in Lochlee. Saw there a 

 flock of pochards, several broods of teal and ducks, and tracks 

 of small and large badgers about the wet ground near the loch. 

 I shot a fine roebuck coming home. He had lost one horn, other- 

 wise he would have had a very handsome head. 



July 10th. The young wild ducks are now just ready to fly. 



July 12th. The herring boats all go out to-day. The Nairn 

 boats engage to sell all their fish to fishcurers at Helmsdale, 

 etc., and they therefore remain from home six weeks, putting 

 in at Helmsdale every Saturday night till the following Monday. 

 There are about sixty-five boats belonging to Nairn. Each boat 

 costs, with rigging, nets, etc., about 26. The crew in each con- 

 sists of five hands. The fishermen have a great prejudice 

 against any boat being manned entirely by one family, in case 

 of any accident happening. 



July 1 6th. Walked to a wood three miles west of this. Saw 

 some roe and many marks of foxes. Remains of fowls, ducks, 

 etc. about the mouths of the holes. I saw also a woodcock. 



August 5th. I see that the wild ducks have their crops quite 

 full of the seeds of different grasses, etc. A fisherman brought me 

 to-day a most extraordinary fish length, 3 feet 6 inches ; breadth, 

 6 inches (vertically), and perfectly flat, not horizontally like a 

 flounder, but vertically. Colour silver-blue, with a beautiful 

 transparent fin of a rose colour running the whole length of 

 its back, and broad fan-like tail, consisting of a transparent 

 rose-coloured membrane. The fish, too, had a peculiar power 

 of elongating its head, which lengthened exactly like a telescope. 

 The oldest fishermen say that they never saw or heard of such a 

 fish before.^ 



August 18th. Saw to-day in a wood near Lochlee the 

 marks of where two roebucks had either been fighting or chasing 

 each other round and round a small tree. The ground was 

 beaten in a ring round the tree, as if an animal had been tied to 

 the tree and had been endeavouring to get away. 



September 10th. Mr Dunbar, of Bonar Bridge, had brought 



* See " Sport in Moray, 1882," p. 201. 



a 



