Barry: Sylvan Vegetation of Fylingdales. 427 
wherever the sea winds could penetrate. Then, after a long 
interval, I thought that I might have been mistaken. At any 
rate, I determined to try again on a soil that was an ideal soil 
for the Birch. 
The site was an old freestone quarry that had grown a crop 
of Larch and stunted Oak, succeeded by a luxuriant jungle of 
Bracken. The quarry was under the brow of the moorland 
plateau, 700 feet above the level of the sea, with a fair amount 
of shelter from the west and south-west, but with exposure, 
though not complete exposure, to the east and north; there 
being sufficient remnants of the old crop to break the extreme 
bitterness of the winds. The result, however, has been com- 
pletely disastrous. Though all other sorts of trees have 
survived, the birch has succumbed, as in previous cases, and 
in a nearly similar manner: namely, by losing all their foliage 
in the early summer after a long continuance of our British 
Etesians. They have not, however, gone all at once, as in the 
previous instance, but some one year and some another, at 
different stages of their growth. 
These details I have thought proper to give, since I have 
not come on any botanical or any sylvicultural author (excepting 
one, to whom I furnished the information myself) who has so 
much as hinted at the Birch being a sea-shunning tree, and since, 
therefore, a general statement might fail to convince. At the 
same time I may mention that I had long noticed that the Birch 
did not occur within a mile or two of our coast where it would 
be fully exposed to the north and north-east. I then observed 
that even under half exposure to these points of the compass, 
and at this distance from the sea, no Birch, or trace of Birch, 
was to be found in our natural woods or coppice. Finally, on 
looking over my journal of Norwegian trave!, I saw that at 
the outer extremities of such fiords as I visited, and amongst 
the islands, the Birch, which all along the slopes of the fiords 
themselves had been the characteristic tree, was replaced by 
Scots Pine. 
With all these facts, therefore, to go upon, I think that the 
conclusion which has been drewn may be fairly justified. If, 
accordingly, it be accepted, then the parts of the main dale of 
Fyling adapted to the Birch are limited from considerations of 
aspect alone, whilst they are still further reduced by consider- 
ations of soil. Hence, in combination with human handiwork, 
the scarcity of the tree in this, the seaward part of the township. 
The Derwent basin, on the other hand, has less of these adverse 
1907 December 1. 
