xxlv YORKSHIRE— PHYSICAL ASPECT. 



is one of the most diversified possessed by any English county. 



The estuary of the Tees — though by no means comparable m 

 size or attractiveness to that of the Humber — is yet of considerable 

 extent. It includes vast stretches of sands, which afforded the 

 last breeding haunt of the seal in Yorkshire (one sandbank 

 indeed bearing the name of 'Seal Sand'); also a series of low 

 salt marshes bordered by sandhills, and intersected by pools and 

 saltwater ditches — formerly the habitat of shore fishes, and an 

 attractive resort for such migratory birds as the waders, ducks and 

 geese. But, as so often has happened in the north of England, 

 the development of trade has here sadly interfered with the 

 natural productiveness of the district. The discovery of Cleve- 

 land ironstone — and consequent rapid rise of Middlesborough as 

 a manufacturing and sea-port town — has involved a train of con- 

 sequences which have done much to render the zoological riches 

 of the Tees mouth almost a tale of the past. The navigation 

 has been improved, foreshores embanked and reclaimed, docks 

 and harbours built, breakwaters projected, and blast furnaces 

 erected along the Coatham Marsh. 



One of these furnaces, built within five hundred yards of the 

 site of a decoy, caused — and no wonder — its discontinuance, . 

 about 1872. Formerly this decoy was fairly productive, and on 

 one occasion yielded a haul estimated at five hundred. At any 

 rate, so great was the number enclosed in the net, that it broke, 

 and most of the ducks escaped, only ninety and nine being 

 actually secured. Ducks are now but seldom seen on the Coatham 

 Marsh, though the sheldrake nested on the sandhills as late as 

 the year 1880, and may still continue to do so. 



The Coatham Marshes and the adjoining Redcar coast possess 

 an interest to the ichthyologist as the scene of the labours of 

 Rudd and Ferguson, two of the most energetic observers that 

 have worked at the fishes of the Yorkshire coast, and the results 

 of whose researches are summarised in the lists appended to 

 ' The Natural History of Redcar.' Many rare fishes have here 

 been noted, including Ray's sea-bream (of which the first 

 recorded or known specimen occurred here exactly 200 years ago, 

 and was described by Ray and Willughby), the argentine or 

 pearlside, the blackjish, and the Hebridal argentine. 



