138 A YERTEBRATE FAUNA OF THE MORAY BASIN. 



FlNDHOEN. 



Many good accounts of the beauties of the river Findhorn are 

 given. The Lays of the Deer Forest, Sir Thos. Dick Lauder's Moray 

 Floods, and his Rivers of Scotland, Knox's Autumns on the Spey, 

 and St. John, besides innumerable Guide-books — e.g. A Guide to 

 Forres, 1887 — local and general, are all worthy of attention by 

 any one intending to visit the scenery around Forres, or who may 

 already have visited the district. An excellent description also of 

 Lower Findhorn will be read with pleasure and information in A 

 Manual of the Antiquities of Moray, Second Edition, Elgin, 1823, 

 p. 77 et seq. Why should we attempt to clothe in other verbiage 

 descriptions which have been already written so well ? It appears 

 to us it would be unprofitable to our readers, who it is presumed 

 are acquainted with the beauties of these authors. One thing 

 seems sure, and that is, as St. John says, the river Findhorn 'is the 

 most picturesque river in Great Britain.' 



XV. THE NAIEN EIVER. 



Of the Nairn river, we can sing but few of its praises, as it is 

 the valley least known to us. We have crossed it far up by the 

 road which leads south from Inverness to Aviemore, and which 

 district, amongst the earns of the foothills of the Monadhliath,. 

 will shortly be made accessible by the new railway which was 

 opened as far as Carr Bridge on the Dulnan in May 1892. From a 

 geological paper, ^ by Mr. Thos. D. Wallace, F.S. A. Scot., head- 

 master of the Inverness High School, we, meanwhile, have culled 

 the following notes, which have a bearing upon our subject : ' The 

 area included in the district over which the following personal 

 observations have been made is about 130 square miles. It in- 

 cludes the whole of the country drained by the river Nairn and its 

 tributaries, and is bounded on the south-east by the range of hills 



1 'Structural Geology of Strathnairn ' (with a Map). Read February 27, 1879. 



