232 THE FRESH-WATER LOCHS OF SCOTLAND 
Loch Dungeon is seven miles north-west of Dairy, at an elevation 
of over 1000 feet above sea-level. Beautifully situated at the base of 
rocky and precipitous mountains, it forms a magnificent, although a 
treeless, piece of highland scenery, wild in the extreme, particularly 
on the south and west shores, where the mountains rise almost per- 
pendicularly from the water's edge. This loch is irregularly shaped, 
being almost cut in twain at one part bv a rocky promontory from 
the south shore and by gravel from a moraine, washed into the loch 
by a burn, forming a peninsula from the north shore. The loch is 
about a mile long by a quarter of a mile broad, and is 94 feet deep. 
Its water is extremely brilliant and clear, and its shores are mostly 
rocky or stony. Excepting associations of Equisetum limosum and 
Phragmites communis in some of the bays, the littoral flora is very 
scanty. The submerged rocks about the shores, as well as those 
exposed, frequently exhibited a wealth of Bryophytes. The sub- 
merged phanerogams were not very abundant, there being merely a 
few of the common species. 
Loch Minnoch is a mile north of Loch Dungeon. It is only 
a quarter of a mile long, but is beautifully situated amidst rugged 
hills. The water is very clear, being, in fact, the water of Loch 
Duno-eon which flows into it by the Hawse Burn. This burn, which 
enters the loch on its south side, has brought into it a large amount 
of detrital matter, causing a shallow area and a considerable bog on 
that side of the loch. This shallow area is overgrown with Equisetum 
limosum, etc., whilst the bog, which is covered with appropriate 
vegetation, merges imperceptibly into moor. The west shore is peaty, 
and it, together with the south shore, forms a suitable habitat for a 
considerable number of plants of the marsh type. The north and 
east shores are rocky, and bear a very scanty vegetation. The sub- 
merged phanerogams appear to be poorly represented by a few 
ordinary species. A number of Bryophytes are common on the shore 
rocks, and a curious form of Catharinea undulata covers rocks to the 
depth of a foot or more. 
Loch Harrow is rather larger than the last-mentioned, and about 
half a mile north of it. The shores are more stony, and there are 
fewer associations of littoral plants, otherwise it is similar. 
The moor about the three last-mentioned lochs is mostly covered 
with grass-like associations, Molinia ca^rulea being the most abundant. 
The three last-mentioned lochs agree, in the paucity of their flora, 
with those on the Merrick range a few miles to the west. The 
scarcity of water-birds about these and other mountain lochs is pro- 
bably a factor to be considered when forming a theory to account for 
the poverty of species in the flora of such lochs. Doubtless mountain 
lochs offer but an inhospitable asylum to the majority of our water- 
