Wanderings of a Naturalist 



the west of Braeriach, and known as Moine Mhor or the 

 Great Moss. In the corrie much snow still remained where 

 it had been drifted in before a winter's gale from the south- 

 east, and near the ridge a large snowfield hid the track near 

 its steepest and most rocky point. A cock ptarmigan rose 

 ahead of us at an elevation of not more than 2,000 feet — an 

 unusually low level at which to find these birds on the Cairn- 

 gorms — ^and no doubt he had a sitting mate near. 



Great fields of snow still lingered in Coire Odhar and 

 fringed the corries of Sgoran Dubh-^Coire Mheadhon, Coire 

 na Cailliche and Coire nan Each^ — the brilliant whiteness of 

 the snowbeds contrasting strikingly with the fresh green 

 grass and blaeberry plants growing just beneath them. Sail- 

 ing along the ridges of Braeriach in the teeth of a northerly 

 breeze, a golden eagle passed us by, and on the hillside were 

 the feathers of some luckless ptarmigan he had captured. The 

 track reaches the plateau of the Moine Mhor at about the 

 3,000-foot level, and from here a magnificent view lay west- 

 ward — Ben Lawers, Schiehallion, Ben Alder, Ben Eibhinn, 

 all stood out, their east-facing corries very heavily marked 

 with the winter snows. Away behind them rose Ben Nevis, 

 and, bearing northwards, and still more distant, the sharp 

 peaks of Knoydart. At our feet lay Loch nan Cnapan, with 

 ice and snow still covering its western shore, and perhaps a 

 couple of miles east of it. Loch an Stuirteag, on the march 

 between Mar and Glenfeshie. All the high ground carried 

 considerably more snow than usual for the time of year, and 

 vegetation was unusually backward. In Horseman's Corrie 

 — named, so it is said, after a former tenant of Glenfeshie 

 forest — the usual extensive snowfield remained, and from it 

 flowed a large and swift-flowing burn of beautifully clear 

 water. 



Clais Luineag, on its western side, was almost entirely 

 beneath snow, and here, beside the source of the burn — ^which 

 for the first mile of its course was flowing beneath a continuous 

 snow bridge — ^we pitched our tent at a height of about 3,600 



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