36 Notes and Comments. 
situated near to the base of the Zone of Ammonztes margaritatus 
at Hawsker, Staithes, Rockcliff, Hummersea, Huntcliffe, and 
Coatham Scars, on the coast, and inland at Hutton, near Guis- 
borough, and in Danby Dale.’ The specimens are often three 
inches long, The illustration herewith, reproduced by the per- 
mission of the Geological Society, is from the Moore collection 
at Bath, and is from the Middle Lias, Cleveland. 
COAST EROSION AGAIN. 
The interest which has been aroused in reference to coast 
erosion is resulting in some valuable information being placed 
on record. From a recent impression of the A/z// News, we 
find a letter in which the writer ‘Having carefully followed 
the evidence given by a number of witnesses before the Royal 
Commission on coast: erosion, as to the cause or otherwise |!| of 
the wasting away of the Holderness Boulder Clay Cliffs,’ informs 
his readers that ‘ My opinion as to the wastage of these clay 
cliffs is based on close observation. I include boulder clay as 
a rock. Itis by its mechanical effects that the sea accomplishes 
most of its erosion. The mere weight with which the ocean 
waves fall upon exposed [szc] coasts breaks off fragments of 
rock from the Cliffs.’ This is just the sort of information the 
Royal Commission wanted ! 
see ee 
MAMMALS. 
Otters near Barnsley.—Every season during this last few 
years, otters have bred in Bretton Park, near Barnsley. They 
have come up the river Dearne as far as Clayton West and 
Skelmanthorpe, and have been seen near Darton.—FRED 
Lawton, Skelmanthorpe. 
Otters near Barnsley.—The otter is not so uncommon in 
the upper waters of the Dearne, to the north of Barnsley, as 
Mr. Bayford’s paragraph (‘ Naturalist,’ January, p. 29) might 
lead us to suppose. Two otters were seen about two years ago 
by a friend of mine in Bretton Park, and one was seen last 
summer in Cannon Hall Park. In November, two old ones and 
two young ones were seen at very close quarters by several 
in the Mill Dam, to the West of Cannon Hall Park; and the 
head keeper has told me, that, when the recent snow was on 
the ground, he could distinctly trace three otters into some 
shrubs near the Dam. An otter-hunting friend told me in the 
summer of 1905, that he saw the footprints of an otter in the 
Park.—C. T. Pratt, Cawthorne Vicarage. 
————— 
Naturalist, 
