105 
THE YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS’ UNION 
AT STAITHES. 
Rev. JOHN HAWELL, M.A., F.G.S., 
President of the Cleveland Naturalists’ Club; Vicar of Ingleby Greenhow. 
PERHAPS in the whole county of York it would not be possible 
particular natural features of an inland district, yet a coast 
excursion, which brings the student of nature into contact with 
the fauna and flora of both land and sea, is pretty certain to 
outvie in interest for him any local area remote from the shore. 
For the geologist in particular the selected district has very 
special attractions as having been made classic ground by 
Phillips, as affording unrivalled and ever-fresh sections of the 
lower Jurassic rocks, and as being a specially notable locality 
for the collection of their fossils, including some hig a 
interesting and well-preserved exuvie of ancient life he on 
indispensable requirement for siete a - aebisediie: in such a i 
was favourable weather, even more necessary on the coast than 
elsewhere, and on this occasion the atmospheric conditions, even 
down to the minor point of temperature, could not have been 
better arranged. 
The fishing village of Staithes had been adopted as the 
central focus for the excursions, and from the point of view of 
a naturalist there are few villages of greater interest. The 
English coast is fast becoming one big modern town, from which 
everything natural is ostracised, and where straight lines—which 
nature abhors, and from which she uses every possible device to 
liberate herself—fill the eye of the visitor in place of her ever- 
graceful curves. Staithes has now, unfortunately, got her 
railway station, and manifests indications of going to the bad 
like her kith and kin, only somewhat more so from want of that 
exuberant capital which tones down the asperities of modernism 
on some stretches of English sea-coast. She still, however, 
retains much of that picturesqueness which comes down from 
the time when each man built his own house in his own way. 
Only a few years ago the village remained almost exactly as it 
must have been when Cook, afterwards so highly distinguished 
as a navigator, lived here as a ‘ prenth ce lad.’ Quite recently it 
ril 1808. 
