INTRODUCTION. xxv 



siderable extent of carrs and low marsh-land. This district, 

 drained by the Derwent and Rye, is shut in on all sides by 

 high lands, and was, in all probability, formerly a lake, the 

 outlet for its drainage even now being at times inadequate, 

 and in rainy seasons the lower portions are liable to be flooded 

 for miles in extent. 



The Chalk Wolds. — A semi-circular range of rounded 

 undulating chalk hills commences near the Humber at Ferriby, 

 and sweeping first in a northerly and then in an easterly direc- 

 tion, terminates in a line of stupendous sea-cliffs at Flam- 

 borough Head. Culminating at its north-west corner in 

 Wilton Beacon, at an altitude of 805 feet, they present a bold 

 front to the central plain on the west and to the vale of 

 Pickering on the north, while by more gentle inclines their 

 south-eastern or inner aspect merges into the low country 

 of Holderness. 



Originally a desolate, grassy, and stony sheepwalk — 

 over which a horseman might ride for thirty miles at a stretch 

 without meeting with a fence or other obstruction, and the 

 resort of the Great Bustard and the Stone Curlew — this 

 district is now ranked amongst the best and most highly- farmed 

 agricultural land of England. The deeply excavated hollows 

 in the Wolds are remarkable for the absence of streams, the 

 only rivulets to which they give rise being the variable and 

 intermittent ones called " gypseys." This deficiency of 

 permanent streams decidedly affects the vertebrate fauna, 

 probably accounting for the absence of such birds as the 

 Dipper, the Sandpiper, and the Grey Wagtail, which occur 

 and breed in corresponding altitudes amongst the hills of 

 the north and west. The characteristic fauna of the Wolds 

 must now be regarded as a thing of the past. The Great 

 Bustard, which here found its northern limit in Britain, has 

 long been driven out by cultivation, and the Stone Curlew 

 is in danger of extinction, the chief bird now to be noted being 

 the Lapwing, which occurs in great abundance. 



Holderness. — A flat, low-lying district of triangular 

 outline interposed between the North Sea and the Humber, 

 and separated from the rest of Yorkshire by the green Wold 



