202 NOTES — GEOLOGY. 



half a mile off Spurn Light in their boat. They passed within 

 thirty yards of the boat, and their peculiar cry was recognised. 

 The birds were afterwards seen by others to alight on the sand- 

 hills near the chalk banks, and they appeared very tired.' 

 On Saturday, May 24th, eight were seen near the Humber in 

 South Killingholme Parish, Lincolnshire. 

 Tree-Sparrow {Fasser montanus). May 31st. We found the nest 

 this afternoon, with the unusual number of seven eggs, built of 

 dead grass and feathers, and placed inside the old nest of a 

 magpie on the top of a Scotch fir in a plantation in this parish 

 (Great Cotes). 



NOTES— GEOLOG Y. 



Discovery of a Bone-Cave at Skirethorns near Grassington-in-Craven. 



— A few days ago, whilst in the neighbourhood of Grassington, I visited a newly- 

 opened cavern at a place called Height, a solitary farm on the limestone hills about 

 a mile west of the hamlet of Skirethorns. The farmer on whose land it is situated 

 decided to open it out a week or two ago, as from the large opening (big enough 

 for a horse and cart) there seemed appearances of an extensive cavern. It is 

 Hlled with stififish clay, and on digging this out quantities of bones were discovered 

 embedded in it. What these exactly are I am unable to say. They have been 

 carefully collected together, and consist apparently of the remains of foxes, deer, 

 and skulls and bones of various extinct animals and birds ; also a number of large 

 well-preserved teeth were found, and several jaws in which the teeth are 

 remarkably perfect. I entered the cavern and with the aid of a candle penetrated 

 to the extremity of the excavations, about ten or a dozen yards, no great distance 

 as yet ; but there is every indication of the cave extending to a considerable dis- 

 tance into the hill. The passage into it is not more than three feet high, but may 

 be enlarged, as the present floor seems of deep clay. The small cliff in which it is 

 situated runs north and south, and the entrance to it faces the west. The altitude 

 is about 1,200 ft. above sea-level. — H. Speight, West Bowling, Bradford, 

 June i6th, 1890. 



The Basement Carboniferous Conglomerate at UUswater. — The 



basement conglomerate of the Carboniferous in the Lake District ('Old Red 

 Sandstone" of some authors) is largely developed in the district north of 

 UUswater, reaching in Mell Fell a thickness of 1,000 or 1,200 ft. Any informa- 

 tion regarding its included pebl)les will be of interest, as helping to determine 

 how far the older rocks were exposed by denutlation at the beginning of the 

 Carboniferous period, and what was the direction from which the materials were 

 derived. There is an excellent exposure on the shore of the lake, under Dun- 

 mallett, near Pooley Bridge. A brief search here was enough to show that the 

 great majority of the pebbles (not less than 95 per cent.) are of a grey or greenish- 

 grey grit, closely resembling the Coniston Grit. Next in abundance come rocks 

 referable to the Volcanic Series (the so-called Borrowdales). These are chiefly 

 represented by various agglomerates of moderate coarseness and dirty-reddish or 

 purplish-brown colours ; but there were also found specimens of a breccia, 

 enclosing angular fragments of pink rhyolite in a dark ashy matrix, a compact fine 

 ash with small concretionary ovoid spots (' birdseye '), a rhyolite, a dark compact 

 andesite containing little glassy prisms of felspar, and other rocks — all of types 

 svell known in the Volcanic Series of the central Lake District. A compact dark- 

 iilue pebble of Coniston Limestone containing numerous /)(;j';7V///(? also occurred. 

 The pebbles are mostly well rounded, and range up to as much as two feet in 

 diameter. Some of the grits, es]3ecially the smaller pebbles, are rather oblong 

 in form. These have a laminated structure, and are often stained red or banded 

 with stripes of red and grey. — A. Harker, St. John's College, Cambridge, 

 ?nd June, 1890. 



Naturalist, 



