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THE RIVER TEES: 

 ITS MARSHES AND THEIR FAUNA.* 



BY THE LATE R. LOFTHOUSE. 



The River Tees (Teyse, Tesi, Teisa, Tesa, Teise, These, Teysa — 

 of old records) separates the counties of York and Durham. At 

 the mouth of the river there is a vast extent of mud-flats (or, as 

 they are locally called, slems), some thousands of acres in extent. 

 These mud-flats or ' slems ' used to be bordered by marshes more 

 or less all the way to Stockton, a distance of about ten or twelve 

 miles, and in former times were resorted to by vast numbers of 

 wild fowl. The marshes on the south side of the river, and a 

 good deal of the fore-shore from Stockton to Eston, have been 

 for the most part re-claimed and filled with slag, and are now 

 occupied by ironworks, wharves, and ship-building yards ; and 

 of late years ironworks have been established on the Coatham 

 Marsh opposite to the extreme mouth of the river, on the site of 

 a rabbit warren, and close to a wild duck decoy, which existed 

 there down to the years 1870-2f. On the north side of the river 

 one or two ironworks have been established at Port Clarence, 

 opposite to Middlesbrough, a distance of seven or eight miles 

 from the sea : that of Messrs. Bell Brothers is the principal, and 

 one of the oldest in the district. To the east of Port Clarence, 

 the north side of the river is still open and unoccupied, and the 

 Saltholm Marsh remains in much the same state as in former 

 times, but extensive reclamation works are being carried out 

 on the shore opposite by the Tees Conservancy Commissioners, 

 who have reclaimed or have in course of reclamation over 2.500 

 acres of land, their operations being confined to the area 

 principally of the foreshore on both sides of the estuary, 

 comprised between high water at spring tides and high water at 

 neaps, and who have constructed over a dozen miles of 

 reclamation-embankments, principally of slag. The mud-flats 

 at the mouth of the river are succeeded by a sandy beach, on the 

 one side reaching from Seaton Snook to Hartlepool, and on the 

 other by perhaps one of the finest stretches of sand in Great 

 Britain, extending from Tod Point to Saltburn, a distance of 

 seven or eight miles, and firm enough for horses and vehicular 



*This Paper was contributed to the " Naturalist " in 1887. 

 The notes referring to Seals on the Tees have been omitted For 



paper on Seals in the Tees, see C.N.F. Proc. vol. 1, pp. 87-99. 

 fSee vol. 1, pp. 100-105, for description of this decoy. 



