CHAP, xx. | SANDHILLS OF MORAYSHIRE. 161 
CHAPTER XX. 
The Sandhills of Morayshire: Description of; Origin of—Foxes: De- 
structiveness and Cunning of; Anecdote of—Roe-hunting in the Sandhills 
—Anecdotes. 
Berween 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 sand- 
hills, in most parts formed of pure and very fine yellowish sand, 
without a blade of vegetation of any description, and constantly 
shifting and changing their shape and appearance on the recur- 
rence of continued dry winds. Looking from the hills more 
inland, this range of sand, in the evening sun, has the appearance 
of a golden boundary line to the beautiful picture of the firth. 
With the magnificent rocks of Cromarty, and the snow-capped 
mountains of Ross-shire and Sutherland in the distance, I know 
no more striking picture than the coup d’cil of this landscape, 
with the smiling plains and groves of Morayshire as a fore- 
ground. 
In other parts of these sandhills are tracts covered with a dry 
and rough kind of bent ; the long roots of which, stretching along 
the surface of the sand, and throwing out innumerable fibres and 
holders, serve in some measure to prevent the drifting of the sand. 
It is a matter of surprise how this bent can find enough sustenance 
and moisture in the sand, which is always moving and always dry. 
At the extremity, opposite Findhorn, is a peninsula, with a soli- 
tary farm-house, and a tolerably-sized arable farm, with tracts of 
broom and furze around it. The furze-bushes are all eaten by the 
rabbits into peculiar shapes, as the old yew and box trees in a 
Dutch garden are cut into figures to humour the quaint fancies 
of their heavy-sterned proprietors. The rabbits ought, by.the by, 
to be well clothed, as they nibble the furze into regular cushions 
and ottomans, on which they sit and look out in the fine summer 
evenings, without fear or dread of the sharpness of the thorns, 
M 
