138 Address to the L.N.U. 
decoys at one period so common in the marsh and fen. We have 
never met with more than one decoy book, namely, the well-kept 
register of the Ashby Decoy, near Brigg, worked successfully for 
so many years by Captain Healey. 
So marvellously abundant were wildfowl before the fens were 
drained that we are told a flock of wild duck has been observed 
passing along from the north and north-east into the east fen, in 
a continuous stream for eight hours together. 
Our next faunal area is very distinct and well-marked—the 
Chalk Wolds—in its greatest length from Barton-on-Humber to 
Burgh, fifty-two miles, and the greatest breadth near Market 
Rasen, fourteen miles ; the highest point of the range, 549 ft., is 
near Normanby Clump, and this is the highest land in the county. 
Before the general enclosure at the commencement of the present 
century the wold was a wild and open region, a rolling upland, 
more or less intersected by deep valleys. ‘These rounded hills 
were covered with heather and heaths, coarse rough grasses, like 
the barren brome, and Aria cespitosa the tufted hair-grass, the 
most graceful if the most useless of all, with thousands of acres 
together of gorse, and ancient thorns in clumps and single. It 
was a district most admirably fitted to the habits of that noble 
bird the Great Bustard, and the Stone Curlew, the former 
probably becoming nearly extinct before the commencement of the 
century, and the latter still holding its own—a few pairs annually © 
nesting, but not now on the wold. 
During the last quarter of the century much good work has 
been done with Lincolnshire geology, the most important reports 
being in connection with the extension of the Rhcetic beds, near 
Gainsborough, by Mr. F. M. Burton, also his examination of these 
and the Keuper Sandstones in the same district ; Professor Judd’s 
paper on the Neocomian strata ; Professor Morris on some Oolite 
sections ; Canon J. E. Cross on Lincolnshire Oolites and Lias ; 
also Mr. Clement Reid’s work in connection with the New 
Geological Survey amongst the boulder-clays, inter-glacial beds, 
marine gravels, post glacial beds and alluvium of Northern ~ 
Lincolnshire, 
