SANDHILLS OF MORAY 



CHAPTER XX 



The Sandhills of Morayshire : Description of; Origin of — Foxes: Destructiveness 

 and Cunning of; Anecdote of— Roe-hunting in the Sandhills — Anecdotes 



Between the fertile plains of Moray and the shores of the 

 Moray Firth there lies one of the most peculiarly barren and 

 strange districts of country in Scotland, consisting of a stretch 

 of sandhills/ in most parts formed of pure and very fine 



' Compare the account of these sandhills given by the author in his Natural History 

 and Sport in Moray ^ p. 271. 



" The lands of Godowine, near the mouth of the Thames, and likewise the land of 

 Moray on the east coast of Scotland, together with many villages, castles, towns, and 

 extensive woods both in England and Scotland, were overwhelmed by the sea, and the 

 labours of men laid waste by the discharge of sand from the sea" at the close of the 

 eleventh century (Boethius). 



In the Hebrides the sandy sea-tracts known as machars are bound together by a wiry 

 bent grass. If sheep nibble this too closely and tear the protecting surface, the winds 

 soon enlarge it, and produce wild drifts of sand which do much damage. " This is said 

 to have been the cause of that overwhelming sand-drift which converted the fertile lands 

 of Culbyn, in Morayshire, into that vast chain of sandhills which now extends along the 

 coast. Seven disastrous years of famine had reduced the people to such extremity of 

 poverty, that they were driven to collect fuel where and how they could. Thus the broom 

 and bent grass which had hitherto bound the shore were all torn up, and the wind catching 

 the sand, blew it in thick clouds upwards of twenty-five miles along the coast, burying 



