xxii YORKSHIRE PHYSICAL ASPECT. 



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 direction, 

 terminates in a line of stupendous sea-cliffs at Flamborough 

 Head. Culminating at its north-west comer 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 Eng- 

 land. 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 verte- 

 brate fauna, probably accounting for the absence of such birds as 

 the dipper, the sandpiper, and the grey wagtail, which occur and 

 breed at 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 badger and the stone-curlew are on the 

 verge of extinction, the chief bird now to be noted being the lap- 

 wing, 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 hills is under an 

 elevation of one hundred feet, with the exception of Dimlington 

 Height, which is but one hundred and fifty-nine ; and of all 

 districts in the county is probably the one which has undergone the 

 most decided physical transformation. There can be little doubt 

 that the aboriginal condition of the district, now rich and fertile 

 corn-land, was that of a vast fen or swamp the haunt of the 



