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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF KIRBY MOORSIDE. 



The members of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union held their 

 225th meeting at Kirby Moorside, in August Bank Holiday 

 week-end, 1910, under very favourable conditions. 



The greater part of the first day was spent in investigating 

 the picturesque village of Kirkdale, with its famous cave, and 

 recently restored church. The cave is situated in an oolitic 

 limestone quarry, which has been worked for over a century. 

 This was shown to be in an ancient coral reef, which yielded 

 3. very fine series of corals, sea-urchins, univalves and bivalves. 

 The cave, which was discovered so long ago as 182 1, was 

 made famous by Buckland, who described it in a series of 

 papers and volumes which are now classic. It was a hyaena 

 den of enormous dimensions, and yielded thousands of bones, 

 teeth, etc., of hysenas, as well as remains of the mammoth, 

 rhinoceros, hippopotamus, reindeer, red deer, horse, and ox. 

 The bones were in a very fragmentary condition, just as left 

 by the hordes of hyaenas which made this cave their home. 

 The cave is now difficult of access. 



The church at Kirkdale was found to be in the hands of 

 the restorers. Over the doorway is the largest Saxon inscrip- 

 tion in stone that exists in England. It records that Orm, the 

 son of Gamal, erected the building in the days of King Edward, 

 and in the days of Earl Tosti. This fixes the date as between 

 1055 2ind 1065. Built into the walls of the church are numerous 

 fine early crosses, and it seems a pity that whilst the altera- 

 tions recently made were in progress, that these were not taken 

 inside. 



At the evening meetings two communications were read. 

 The first was by Mr. W. N. Cheesman, on some Myxomycetes 

 which he had collected in Canada. These lowly organisms in 

 the earlier stages of their existence have many characteristics 

 peculiar to the animal kingdom, whilst at a later stage in their 

 life history they certainly resemble plants. Probably the 

 correct explanation is that they represent the primitive stage 

 of life from which spring both animals and plants. 



Mr. T. Sheppard read a paper on the cave and church at 

 Kirkdale. Of the former he exhibited a recent plan, 

 made by Mr. T. R. Nash, which shewed man\' details not 

 exhibited in Buckland 's book. He also referred to the numer- 

 ous remains of extinct animals which were found. 



igio Nov. I. 



