46 A VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF THE MORAY BASIN. 



well amidst the bright heather bloom. Here and there too were 

 isolated trees, which having had space to breathe and grow as they 

 listed, although not large, had assumed picturesque shapes which 

 are foreign to those that are carefully planted and protected by 

 the others around them. 



We may here mention that we have been assured by eye-wit- 

 nesses that Eooks, at a certain time of year, are often seen flying 

 about with fir-cones (clerkins one man called them) in their mouths, 

 and dropping or burying them in the heather ; this may account 

 at times for firs springing up in unprotected and un planted places. 



A wide valley runs from where the road between Eortrose and 

 Cromarty leaves the Kosemarkie glen, almost to Cromarty. The 

 ground rises high to the east side, and the plantations, moorland, 

 and arable ground, are strangely intermixed. Innumerable Babbits 

 appeared in one or two places, but elsewhere they were conspicu- 

 ous by their absence. New wire-fences were being put up here 

 and there, though the old and picturesque fail-dykes ^ were still 

 standing in places, pointing out the old landmarks. Such a thing 

 as a hedge, as one knows it in England, exists in very few places 

 in the north, and these are often ragged and unkempt, and mended 

 with all sorts of queer things, — bits of wire, palings, old wheel- 

 barrows, or even an old cart-wheel. 



Whins and broom grow freely in the uncultivated or unplanted 

 patches, more especially in the south-west or south, where the soil 

 is very light and much mixed with gravel, a great protection and 

 shelter for game; such patches are frequently met with among 

 the smaller farms and lots. 



Just a little to the east of the old-world — though once im- 

 portant — town of Cromarty, are the well-known Sutors, which, 

 separated from each other by less than a mile of water, guard 

 the entrance to the Cromarty Firth. Many a wind-bound or 

 storm-driven vessel has ridden quietly and safely in the roads 

 inside the entrance, and the deep water extends right up to, and 

 a little beyond, Invergordon, where the Channel Fleet has anchored 

 on its visits to the northern ports. Immediately inside the Sutors, 

 and opposite the town of Cromarty, the water opens out into the 



1 ' A wall built of sods or turfs. ' — Jamieson's Scot. Diet. 



