PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



43 



The Beauly Firth abounds in wild-fowl and wading-birds of 

 various species, and the sandbanks at low water are resorted to 

 by numbers of seals, which constitute a source of annoyance and 

 loss to the salmon-fishers in the Firth, Much of the land about 

 Chines would appear to have been reclaimed from the sea, as a 

 substantial embankment, here and there edged with piles where 

 most exposed to the action of the water, and on the inside a deep 

 ditch, seem to denote. On the mud nearest the land, a species of 

 grass (?) about a foot high grows, and, during the early autumn, 

 affords a holding place for a number of Water-hens and a few 

 Snipe. Almost on the very shore, and near the station of Lentran, 

 is a splendid spring of fresh water. 



Below Clachnaharry, and near the mouth of the Ness, a point 

 runs out into the Firth, where Kessock Ferry is situated, and the 

 tide runs here with great force. Numbers of Guillemots and 

 Razorbills at times haunt this neighbourhood, attracted, no doubt, 

 by the garvies as well as small herrings, the catching of which fish 

 is an industry to a good number of boats, the fish finding a ready 

 sale for the southern markets. 



III. THE BLACK ISLE. 



The Black Isle, as it is locally called, is that part of Eoss-shire 

 which forms a peninsula, surrounded on the north-west by the 

 Cromarty — and on the south and south-east by the Beauly Firths. 

 It is about twenty miles in its greatest length, and about eight 

 miles in its greatest breadth. Parts of Cromarty and Nairn are 

 included in this area. 



There are two ridges of high land that run almost the whole 

 length of the Isle, one near the centre that rises in Millbuie to a 

 height of a little over 800 feet, and the other, that runs along the 

 east coast commencing at Craigton opposite the town of Inverness, 

 close to which is the Ord hill, 633 feet, and ends at the West 

 Sutor of Cromarty. 



This latter range is broken in one or two places by inlets, the 



