Natural History. 23 



The Rev. C. W. Whistler found the Natterjack toad (Bufo 

 calamlta] on the sand-hills. This is an interesting reptile and 

 very different from the common toad. It is a light yellow 

 colour, and never leaps nor does it crawl, its progression being 

 more like a run. This toad was first discovered near Revesby 

 Abbey, by Sir Joseph Banks, who made it known to the 

 naturalist Pennant. Its distribution is somewhat remarkable, 

 for it is found not only in England, but also in localities in 

 Ireland, where the common species is unknown. All the Irish 

 snakes and toads, as you know, were turned into stone by St. 

 Patrick, but this seems to have escaped the wrath of the Saint. 

 The inference is that the Natterjack succeeded in reaching 

 Ireland before that distressful isle had become severed from 

 Great Britain, which the common toad did not do, so we must 

 consider the former is the older immigrant of the two ; 

 perhaps its particular mode of progress afforded better and 

 more favourable facilities for getting over the ground. 



In our investigations into the natural history of this county, 

 we must remember that at no very distant period Lincolnshire 

 was part of the mainland of Europe, and there was no North 

 Sea as we know it now, and we must therefore expect to find 

 close affinity between the fauna and flora on both sides of the 

 water. Once, no doubt, a great central river, whose debouchure 

 was over the Dogger Bank, received the waters of the rivers 

 from each side. The North Sea, if you will take the trouble 

 to look at Mr. Olsen's map, is little more than a great plain 

 covered by shallow water ; off the north-east coast of England 

 it is twenty fathoms, and as we go south even this depth is 

 exceptional. The North Sea contains some remarkable 

 depressions, one of which, the Silver Pit, is a narrow submarine 

 valley fifty fathoms in depth, forty miles off the north-east 

 coast of Lincolnshire. The intrusion of this great water, the 

 North Sea, between ourselves and the continent may have been 

 very rapid, for when the chalk barrier, which presumably at 

 one time extended eastward from Flamboro' Head (cropping 

 out again round Heligoland), was once breached and the 

 central river taken in flank, there is no reason why the great 

 level plain of intermediate Lincolnshire should not have been 

 submerged in a period even of a few days. 



The second meeting was at Woodhall Spa, on August yth, 

 with a very fair attendance of members, who were taken over 

 the ground by the Rev. J. Conway Walter. The day was 

 very hot, scarcely any birds were seen and very few insects 



