THE NATURALIST IN NIDDERDALE. . 865 
wheat), &c., indicates that the Norman invasion touched Nidder- 
dale lightly. Fountains Abbey had granges in it. 
Nidderdale and its moors have formerly been covered by 
an extensive forest. Many trees lie buried in the peat upon 
the moors. In the thousands of sections made by little water- 
courses the birch appears almost everywhere predominant. Hazel, 
“sealh” (willow), thorn, oaks, &e., also occur, but the birch must 
have formed a thick and almost universal forest by itself, such 
as may be seen on the west coast of Norway at the present day. 
There are many oaks in the peat-bogs between Blayshaw Gill and 
Brown Rigg, 1000 to 1250 feet, easterly aspect, exposed; and a 
very large oak, thirty feet long, was dug up at Biggin Grange, Kex 
Moor (550 feet). In Sykes Moss most of the buried trees are 
sealhs, oaks, and birches. The birch is easily recognised by 
preserving its bark so completely, and an old sealh is known by 
its red wood. The wood of a young sealh is white. 
The birch and thorn covered the upper part of the sides of 
the dale, what the Angles called the ‘‘ Edge,” while in the bottom © 
of the dale there flourished the sycamore, ash, holly, hazel, alder, 
bullace, elder, wych elm, “heckberry ” (bird-cherry), &c.; the last 
especially in the neighbourhood of Lodge, near the dale head. 
There is now a fine avenue of planes (sycamores) at Woodale, 
1000 feet, with heckberry, common ash, and alder, with Petasites 
vulgaris along the river bank. At Rough Close, 925 feet, there 
are hazel, holly, ash, sycamore, bullace; on Bekkrmét Scar, 725 
to 900 feet, there are ash, hazel, holly, bullace, thorn, the ash 
being the commonest. All the large trees on the Scar are ash, 
with a strong undergrowth of hazel. All along under Thwaite 
House nearly all the trees are ash, with the remains of hazel 
undergrowth, and a few fine “hollins” (hollies). On Boysoak Sear, 
700 to 750 feet, there are ash, alder (at bottom), holm, ivy, and 
elder; and along the river bank south of Thorpe House, 600 to 
650 feet, there are ash, alder, hazel, heckberry, plum (sloe). In 
the same field there is a remarkakle old birch, with very small 
leaves, not pendulous. Though there are now hardly any beeches 
to be seen in the dale, I am told by the old people that they 
formerly abounded, but have been gradually all felled. Bekkrmét 
Scar and Boysoak Scar are limestone, but all the rest of the dale 
is sandstone and shale, or the covering of drift clay and gravel that 
lies upon them. With these may be compared the limestone slopes 
of Wharfedale. A little above Netherside, on a steep slope below 
