THE JDBUMOUCHTER MOUNTAIJSIS. 



lix 



The Drumouchter Mountains. 



Our next object after leaving Eannoch was to obtain views of 

 the great main range of the mountains which guard the pass of 

 Drumouchter on the west side. In order to do this at the least 

 expenditure of time, we took train from Struan to Dalnaspidal 

 Station on the Highland Eailway. 



From a point above the old highroad — over which I had driven 

 before the railway was made — we got successful views of the two 

 gigantic and clumsy hills known as the Boar of Badenoch, and the 

 Atholl Sow ; and between them the long level ridge of the table- 

 topped plateau which stretches back from the eastern peak or brow 

 of Marcaonich, and which I have named in my illustration under 

 the species " A Typical Dotterel Mountain." 



Marcaonich has an almost perfectly level top as seen from our 

 position, but the platform really slopes very gently westward ; 

 then about half a mile from the western end it gradually dips 

 again. On the right, as viewed from the same position, is the long 

 rising shoulder which forms the easiest side of approach from the 

 shooting-lodge of Drumouchter. It was by this approach that 

 Colonel Feilden and I ascended on the day we took the Dotterel's 

 eggs. 



There is another but very different view of Marcaonich from 

 Drumouchter. From this point the characteristic long ridge of the 

 plateau is not seen, but only the eastern nose and the great scree, 

 and the shallow corrie immediately beneath the summit, to-day 

 filled with snow-wreaths. 



I have in illustrating it, therefore,, preferred to show the ridge 

 of the plateau as a typical Dotterel mountain. A heavy, long- 

 stretching wreath of snow lay all along below the ridge above the 

 great screes which drain their winter floods to the Tay. I could 

 just see that a similar wreath or wreaths also filled the corrie of the 

 north-east end. A smaller patch lay on a lower shoulder which 

 drains to Spey by the waters of the Truim. 



