Brooke : Old Kiver Gravels of the Colne Valley. 185 



of the Deighton Station, about one mile further east on the same line 

 of railway. The section immediately behind the station gives — 



ft. in. 



Earth 2 0 



Coarse gravel ... ... 8 6 



Black shale ... ... ... 7 0 



This bed is 225 feet above sea level, or 50 feet above the present 

 river bed. 



Although the two patches of gravel in the valley of the Calder and 

 the Colne are probably of the same age, yet their composition is 

 entirely different : for, whilst the former contain foreign rocks in 

 considerable abundance, the latter are made up of local sandstones 

 and ganisters, with a complete absence of older rocks. 



The absence of glacial deposits in the valley of the Colne — and 

 indeed within its watershed — has been noted by H.M. Geological 

 Surveyors, and seems to point to the conclusion that during the 

 glacial period a barrier of high ground, trending north and south, 

 extended from Todmorden into Derbyshire, of sufficient altitude to 

 prevent the extension of the glacial sea into the large area drained 

 by the river Colne. 



Huddersfield, May 10th, 1877. 



Upupa epops at Tockwith. — A fine male specimen of the Hoopoe 

 (JJpupa epops) has been shot at Tockwith, near York, and has been sent 

 for preservation to Mr. Ripley, of Feasgate, York. — J. S. Wesley, 

 Wetherby. 



Sparrows destroyed by Hail, — I have more than once heard (and I 

 dare say other readers could say the same, though it may not have come 

 directly under their notice) of sparrows being killed in numbers by 

 unusually heavy showers of hail and sleet, and of courtyards which in 

 the morning have been found strewn with the little feathered corpses, 

 under the trees where they had been seen roosting the night before. I 

 find from an old note that something of the kind happened in this parish 

 (Northrepps in E. Norwich) in September, 1833, when nearly 300 dead 

 sparrows were picked up after a storm under a single tree. This must 

 have been a heavy gale to cause such slaughter. Sparrows are as 

 plentiful in Norfolk as in any county, and we could well alford to spare a 



