142 A VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF THE MORAY BASIN. 



' Witch-ground ' appears to be a most probable continuation, is at 

 the present time, and has been for ages, a vast highway of bird- 

 migrants, and that it has, in no small degree, regulated the distri- 

 bution of many of our breeding species. 



The Great Glen is indeed a vast depressed surface — a funnel, 

 as it were, of which the coasts to the north of its neck at, say, 

 Tarbet Ness, or to still further narrow the entrance, say, at 

 Cromarty Ness and the Sutors, and as far as Duncansbay Head 

 on the north, and Cairnbulg Head or Kinnaird's Head on the 

 south, form the lips or receivers. In other words, when the 

 entrance of the river Ness is reached, a cul-de-sac is formed catch- 

 ing the compressed flocks of migrants and leading them onwards. 



The accompanying diagram upon our map may assist in illus- 

 trating the above and following remarks, upon the faunal position 

 and importance of our area. 



As will be easily realised, great physical changes have taken 

 place upon the coast-lines of Moray. At one time, not so very 

 far back in the history of Moray, a long double promontory or 

 hammer-head- shaped extent of land occupied the southern shore- 

 line of the Firth, stretching from Lossiemouth in the east, to a 

 little to the west of Burghead, and again beyond the mouth of the 

 present Findhorn river was another isolated or semi-isolated bank, 

 or peninsula, which continued as a barrier to the encroachments 

 of the sea for many miles to the west, and is now only repre- 

 sented by the remaining portion of The Old Bar of Findhorn. 

 These islands, or peninsular projections parallel with the inner 

 coast-line, were formed by the combined actions of the sea and of 

 the rivers and fresh-water areas of the Lossie, Loch Spynie — once 

 an arm of the sea itself, Loch Eosyle (Eoseisle, as shown upon 

 Timothy Font's map, dating 1654), and the Findhorn, and Nairn, 

 and possibly the Ness rivers. 



At a still more remote period, it would appear that a still 

 mightier river flowed through what is now the Moray Firth. The 

 deep trench known to local fishermen as the ' Truik ' — with 

 certain portions named after the fish which frequent their isolated 

 shoals, such as the * Witch Bank ' already mentioned — extends all 

 the way from Nairn to Fraserburgh, varying somewhat in depths, 



