CHAP. XXIII. ] SCENERY OF THE FINDHORN. 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, he 
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 shapes imaginable over the surface of the 
rocks. The lovely weeping-birch is everywhere, and about 
Coulmony are groves of magnificent beech and other forest- 
trees. On the opposite side are the wooded hills and heights of 
Relugas, 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 Logie the view of the course of the river, and 
the distance seen far up the glen till it is gradually lost in a suc- 
cession of purple mountains, is worth a halt of some time to 
enjoy. The steep banks opposite Logie, clothed with every 
variety of wood, are 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, as 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, and other trees, while the 
