136 A VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF THE MORAY BASIN. 



search for a pin in a ' bottle o' hay/ so we turned on the ridge 

 above Glen Derry on both occasions, after waiting wearily for the 

 mists to lift or roll away. 



XIV. THE EIVER FINDHOEN AND ITS CAEN DISTEICT. 



Above Findhorn Bridge at Tomatin the valley is very wide, yet 

 the watershed is not far distant, and the river Findhorn has a 

 comparatively narrow basin. For many miles up on either side — 

 between Findhorn and Spey on the south or right bank, and 

 between Findhorn and the river Nairn on the north or left bank 

 — an altitude is reached by the dividing hills of about 2000 to 2300 

 feet — these swelling, rounded, glaciated hills forming just such 

 another Carn district as we have before attempted to describe. 

 Our highest point upon the Inverness road between Findhorn 

 and Nairn is near the small lochans on the moor above Moy 

 Hall, an elevation of 1600 feet. As already remarked, the hills 

 are all rounded off by glacial action as far up as one can see, and 

 no prominent features characterise their somewhat monotonous 

 contours. Here and there a peaty hag or scaur shows, or a clump 

 of birch or younger pine, and there are a few neat, villa-like 

 cottages and more substantial farm-towns upon the cultivated 

 slopes and amongst the lower birch-woods. The wide haugh is 

 rich in crop-lands and Highland cattle. Short, sharp windings of 

 the peat roads ascend the hollows over the hills, and the main road 

 to Carr Bridge and Aviemore by the valley of the Dulnan — a 

 tributary of Spey — is visible for several miles of its course, after 

 crossing the Findhorn by Findhorn Bridge at Tomatin. The river 

 itself is wide, with many gravel shores and banks, lined here and 

 there with old birch -woods. The air is bracing and pure and 

 healthful — the opposite of the enervating climate of the lower and 

 more shut-in valleys. The rapidity of the great floods of this 

 river renders it at times dangerous to the casual fisherman or 

 . the thoughtless loiterer by its banks, coming down with little or 

 no warning in a wall of water three or four feet high. Slight 



