22 



A VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF THE MORAY BASIN. 



GENERAL REMAEKS DESCRIPTIVE OF THE 

 WATER SYSTEMS AND TOPOGRAPHY. 



Having disposed of the natural boundaries and treated of the 

 encircling rim of its watersheds, we now shortly specify the 

 principal water systems so enclosed. 



The whole area may be described as consisting of great fresh- 

 water systems, and one large marine area. Commencing in the 

 north we have the coast-lines and rivers of Sutherland and the 

 Dornoch Firth. Then comes the Conon and the Beauly basins, 

 and the great area of the Ness watershed, with its large lake and 

 separate river systems. South of Inverness we have the Findhorn, 

 the Nairn, the Spey, and the Deveron, and the coast-lines as far 

 east as Cairnbulg Point. Greatest of these river valleys is the 

 Spey, finding its sources in the extreme south-west of the area, 

 and after a pretty straight and wide course, running into the 

 Moray Firth at Kingston. Spey touches hands as it were with 

 the drainage systems of Argyll in the west, with Tay, and, by its 

 tributaries, with Dee, and is itself divided into sections geographi- 

 cally recognised as Upper and Lower Badenoch, Strathspey, and 

 Speyside. 



Shorter in their courses, yet rivers of considerable volume and 

 drainage areas, are the Deveron on the north-east, and the Find- 

 horn on the north-west of Spey. The Findhorn is separated from 

 Spey by the southernmost spurs and ridges of the great Monadh- 

 liath Mountains, and the lower Carn-districts which lie around 

 the middle reaches of Dulnan and Findhorn ; runs a course nearly 

 parallel with Spey — but having the Dulnan, a tributary of the 

 Spey, between — and finds its rest, after tumultuous ravings amid 



