xxviii INTRODUCTION. 



consequences which have done much to render the zoological 

 riches of the Teesmouth almost a tale of the past. The 

 navigation has been improved, foreshores embanked and 

 reclaimed, docks and harbours built, breakwaters projected, 

 and blast furnaces erected along the Coatham Marsh. 



One of these furnaces, built within five hundred yards 

 of the site of a decoy, caused — and no wonder — its dis- 

 continuance, about 1872. Formerly this decoy was fairly 

 productive, and on one occasion yielded a haul estimated 

 at five hundred. At any rate, so great was the number 

 enclosed in the net, that it broke, and most of the Ducks 

 escaped, only ninety and nine being actually secured. Amongst 

 the most interesting birds of this area are the Sheld-duck, 

 Redshank, and Dunlin, which nest sparingly in the vicinity 

 of the Tees estuary. 



The first ten or twelve miles of the Yorkshire coast, 

 commencing from the mouth of the Tees, is low and fronted 

 by a reach of firm sandy beach, but at Marske and Saltburn 

 begins to rise. Beyond Saltburn is Huntcliffe, thus quaintly 

 referred to in the Cottonian MS. (1604) : — " Huntley Nabbe, 

 where the coaste beginnes to rise Highe, full of craggs and 

 steepe Rockes, wherein Meawes, pidgeons, and Sea-fowle 

 breed plentifullye." Here the Cleveland hills present towards 

 the sea a line of liassic and oolitic cliffs extending for forty-four 

 miles, and terminating at the Castle Hill of Scarborough. 

 These Cleveland sea-cliffs — amongst the loftiest in England, 

 and attaining their maximum height of 680 feet at Boulby — 

 afford several breeding stations for the Cormorant and the 

 Herring Gull, whilst along their range the Raven formerly 

 bred in scattered pairs in suitable stations. The Scarborough 

 Castle Hill — the outlying mass of rock which marks the 

 southward termination of the Cleveland cliffs — was also in 

 former times a breeding station of this bird, and it is recorded 

 to have nested there for the last time about 1850. 



The coast — now the eastern termination of the vale of 

 Pickering — is comparatively low from Scarborough southward, 

 and mostly composed of soft rocks which offer but slight 

 resistance to the destructive action of the waves, save where 



