100 A VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF THE MORAY BASIN. 



XL KIVEK DEVEEON. 



The numerous sources of the river Deveron and its upper 

 tributaries are situated amongst the hills and hollows of the great 

 Carn District of Spey, which we shall have occasion to describe 

 shortly. The river Deveron itself rises at an elevation of 1750 

 feet above the sea, and runs a course of about fifty-five to sixty 

 miles in a general north-east direction, maintaining an average 

 fall of about 30 feet per mile. The Allt Deveron — or infant 

 stream — rises to the south-west of the Buck of Cabrach, and is 

 joined by many tributaries before it leaves the great hollow of the 

 Upper Cabrach Valley. Throughout nearly the whole of its 

 course, it is fed by natural drainage only very slightly assisted by 

 artificial drains — certainly not nearly to the same extent as many 

 of our rivers both in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland. 

 Its sources are springs, and there are no great reservoirs nor lakes 

 as feeders. It pursues the even tenor of its way, down amongst 

 fallow and lea, through a strictly pastoral and agricultural district 

 for many miles of its upper courses. 



Undulating hills surround and encompass it, grouse-moors 

 above, birch slopes on the sides of the right bank, and agricultural 

 land to the summits on the left. This continues long after it 

 leaves the Upper Cabrach Valley, and may indeed be said to con- 

 tinue with but slight interruption down to Huntly. The scenery 

 is varied, however, by considerable plantations and woods at and 

 above Beldorney, where the river rushes through a romantic rocky 

 gorge, famed for its salmon pools. Below Beldorney and at Brae- 

 more, fresh young woods have recently been planted, and large 

 masses of natural birch clothe the steep slopes of the right bank 

 below the top fringing of heather. Close to and above Huntly, 

 and occupying the land between the river Deveron and its most 

 important tributary on the left bank — the river Isla — is a huge 

 wood, almost circular in form, and twenty-one miles in circum- 

 ference, known as the Bin Wood, composed principally of forty- 



