Woodruff e- Peacock ; The Ecology of Thome Waste. 23 



baries having cleared off the peat — this species fitting home 

 was practically destroyed in this area. It should be noted that 

 these turbaries began within a quarter of a mile of the village 

 of Crowle, and like the decoy said to have been there too, 

 belong to the seventeenth century, as well, no doubt, as a later 

 date. 



There is one other point of confirmation. Dr. Ellis and 

 the Rev. J. K. Miller both name a decoy close to Crowle ; 

 and the Doctor implied that it had been warped over and 

 buried with the turbaries years earlier. Now there are or 

 were at least six decoys on Thorne Waste with this one of 

 Messrs. Ellis and Miller ; two near Goole, two near Thorne, 

 one on the moor, in Yorkshire, two and a half miles from 

 Crowle, from which the turf is being cut off now for warping. 

 Archdeacon Stonehouse's Hist, of the Isle of Axholme, p. 68, 

 says, there was (another?) one within a mile of Crowle, which 

 was called even in my day ' Crowle Decoy ' by old men, 

 who could remember it before it was warped over. In which 

 county it was I cannot say, but I believe in Yorkshire, on the 

 very border. This could only be possible if it were due west 

 of the village, which I understood it was — if north or south 

 it was no doubt in Lincolnshire. I was told by W. Tune 

 that the birds flighted over Lincolnshire to the Humber 

 saltings in an evening. The ' New Decoy,' as I have heard it 

 called as a lad, two and a half miles from Crowle, is most 

 certainly in Yorkshire, but never had turbaries round it to 

 my knowledge. It was too far away from that village with 

 so much good peat nearer. 



To sum up all the evidence available now. Scheuchzeria 

 was found in pools in turbaries on the edge of the two counties, 

 and it was ' in great numbers,' ' in great plenty,' and 'most 

 abundant,' according to three quite independent witnesses, 

 as it might be expected to be where there was little floral 

 competition. This was the case before any warping was done, 

 north, south, or west of Crowle. Since then the plant has 

 become extinct, as there was no fitting spot elsewhere in my 

 day on the moor. 



I judge, therefore, that this point is at last finally settled 

 for good. No doubt it was in both counties, as the turbaries 

 certainly were, as Dr. P. Ellis said. If he were wrong in this, 

 it is the only thing in which he has ever proved to be wrong. 

 His still more wonderful facts about the Hazel nuts, twenty 

 feet below the bed of the river Trent, bored by the Nut Beetle 

 {Balanintis nucuni, L.), has been demonstrated as true. 

 See Trans. Lines. Nat. Union, Vol. III., pp. 33, 116 and 166- 

 168. He said, too, that Scheuchzeria had gone, for its natural 

 conditions had been destroyed, and that I should never take 

 it ; and after years of hunting I have not in either county. 



19U1 Jan. 1 



