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THE FAUNA OF LINCOLNSHIRE. 



[In an Address to the Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union, delivered at 

 Lincoln on May 31st last, Mr. John Cordeaux, as President of the Union, 

 made some instructive observations on the faunal areas of Lincolnshire, and 

 on the best mode of utilising the materials which exist for elucidating the 

 Natural History of the county. As those remarks will doubtless interest 

 many besides those to whom they were originally addressed, we give the 

 following abstract, omitting such observations as were of purely personal or 

 local application. — Ed.] 



Lincolnshire is the second largest county in England, its 

 total length being seventy-five miles by forty -eight in breadth, and 

 containing 1,777,879 acres, 85 per cent, under cultivation. The 

 surface presents a very considerable diversity of character, sea- 

 coast, marsh, wold, moor, heath, and fen, and some very consider- 

 able woodlands with much pleasant and typical scenery, without 

 anywhere rising into the grand and strikingly picturesque. 



The county is not readily divided into what are called "faunal 

 areas" — that is, districts more or less compact, with well-defined 

 boundaries, between which — one or the other — faunal distinctions 

 can be clearly established. In taking a general survey of the 

 whole area it appears capable of being irregularly divided into at 

 least six fairly marked districts ; these are — 



I. The Marsh and Middle Marsh — which is the whole of the 

 great alluvial flat which lies between the east coast and 

 the foot of the chalk wolds, as far as Spilsby. 

 II. The Fens — south of Spilsby and Wainfleet and east of 

 Billinghay, Heckington, Bourn, and Market Deeping, 

 with a branch extending westward of the Witham to 

 Lincoln. 



III. The Chalk Wolds. 



IV. The Heath — an irregular district, partly on the oolite and 



partly on the lias, and not easily defined. In its more 

 southern portion it is split into two arms by the Witham 

 valley. It runs from S.E. to N.W., and includes the 

 heaths near Woodhall Spa, the moorland near Market 

 Rasen and below Caistor, and the commons and rabbit- 

 warrens between Gainsborough and Frodingham, in the 

 north-west of the county. 



