360 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
sike,” “Haga sike” (hedge or fence, i.¢., boundary), “ Twisling” 
(twislung, tributary, adj.); “Thornit” (thorniht, thorny, or 
abounding in thorn-bushes); ‘Mere Dike” (meera, a boundary, 
being the boundary between Stonebeckup and Fountains Earth) 
applied to streams, as well as “ Héaning” to fields (Anglo-Saxon 
héan, high; ing, field), give but a faint idea of the extent to 
which the Angles stamped their image upon the higher parts of 
the dale during the three centuries of their possession of it before 
the Danish invasion. 
About four miles from its source the Nidd sinks into its lime- 
stone bed, and for two miles takes a subterranean course,—like 
the Mole, in Surrey, which does the same between Dorking and 
Leatherhead, and the Churn in Gloucestershire. It would have 
been strange if this rare phenomenon had escaped the notice of 
the dwellers in the dale, to which it gives a distinctive character. 
Accordingly, we find the Anglo-Saxon word Nider, nyder, meaning 
“ down,” ‘‘ below,” given, in allusion to this descent and subter- 
ranean course, as a name to the river, and the A. S. word 
géeotend, the “down-pouring” or “channel,” to the artery through 
which the water flows. This is now called ‘‘Gooden Pot” or 
Goydin Pot, which latter word may have a different derivation. 
The modern pronunciation of ‘ Nidderdale” is as nearly 
“ Nitherdil” and ‘‘ Netherdil” as it can be written in modern 
English, but the modern name of the river is Nidd. This is, 
doubtless, one of the modifications introduced by the Dano- 
Norwegian invaders on their settlement in the dale three centuries 
later. ‘“‘ Towards 867 an organised expedition of Norsemen under 
Ingvar and Ubba, two of their kings, landed in Northumbria, in 
which district, in the beginning of Alfred’s reign, or about 872, 
Halfdene rewarded his followers with grants of land. The settle- 
ment was something like the Norman Conquest two hundred 
years later, and its extent may be gathered from the fact that in 
the four counties of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Cumberland, and 
Westmoreland, there are nearly one thousand places which have 
Dana-Norwegian names against less than four hundred in all the 
rest of England.”—Pearson’s ‘ Early and Middle Ages,’ ed. 1861, 
p- 107; Worsaae’s ‘Danes in England,’ p. 71. If the names of 
farms and physical features were taken into account, this number 
would be greatly extended. Among other places the Danes 
settled im Nidderdale, and called the river, not Nider, but 
