XXX vi 



DESCRIPTIVE CHAPTERS. 



with that other great range of afforested grounds which reaches up 

 our west coast almost to Cape Wrath, and of which I have spoken 

 in the last issued volume of this series. Wliat the ultimate result 

 of this may be, there are many opinions held by different indivi- 

 duals. What it is or has been up to this time is abundantly patent, 

 at least aloug our western seaboard and to the west of the backbone 

 of Scotland. I have shown this, I think, in a previous volume, and 

 I have no intention of repeating it here. I will only add that even 

 greater additions are likely to be made in the near future, which will 

 appreciably broaden this deer-belt across Scotland. 



The above superior portion of the whole area may be defined — as 

 has been done by Dr. Buchanan White — as the Great Upper District 

 above the 200-feet levels at the junction of Tay and Tummel. But 

 in addition to this tract, we must not forget the lesser Forest of Glen 

 Artney in the south-west, which has a claim to almost equal position 

 in the scale, and which impinges upon the sister area of Forth and 

 the broad Vale of Menteith, as well as the tract of grouse-moors 

 which reaches from Crieff northward to Glen Lyon, and stretches 

 across from the confines of the Blackmount Forest in the west to the 

 neighbourhood of Perth, and eastward into Forfar and Strathmore, 

 embracing the more isolated ranges of the Lomonds in Fife and 

 part of the Sidlaw Hills in Perth and Forfar. 



Before quitting this high division of the area, I may mention the 

 principal lochs which act as reservoirs for the river Tay, and resting 

 pools in many cases for the ascending salmon. Chief amongst these 

 is the grand sheet of water which forms Loch Tay — famed among 

 salmon-fishers — and fed from smaller lochs among the hills, such as 

 Loch Dochart in the west, and many smaller ones high up on the 

 shoulders of the hills to the north. Then we have Lochs Tummel and 

 Kannoch, the latter draining a great expanse of country from the 

 farthest boundaries of the Moor of Kannoch, and also the long eighteen- 

 mile trench of Loch Ericht from the watersheds of the main range of 

 the Grampians at Drumouchter. Minor sheets of water are almost 

 innumerable within the boundaries of the county of Perth, but all, by 

 innumerable channels, flow on to swell the broad bosom of the parent 

 Tay, and with their tributary burns to find comparative rest from the 

 wild winds of heaven, and their writhing through their rugged glens. 

 Over many a rough-and-tumble precipice they often have to pass. 



