25 



THE MARINE SHELLS OF YORKSHIRE. 



By the Rev. W. C. HEY, M.A., 

 S^. O laves Vicarage, York; President of the Conchological Section of the Yorkshire 

 Xaturalists' Union. 



The land and freshwater shells of Yorkshire have been carefully 

 studied by numerous collectors in different parts of the county, and 

 the importance of recording exact localities has been fully recognised. 

 Of the Marine Shells, in spite of the indefatigable labours of Bean 

 and Leckenby, there is still much lack of definite and collected 

 information. The present paper indeed professes to be no more 

 than a contribution in the direction of the formation of a complete 

 and elaborate catalogue, which surely ought to be looked for at no 

 very distant period. I intend, therefore, in the following list, to 

 give, as a rule, merely my own personal observations, but to make 

 them as accurate, full, and exact as possible. 



The Yorkshire coast presents a fertile field for conchological 

 research, owing to its very varied character. To begin with, we have 

 some almost unequalled sandy beaches — the chosen haunt of so many 

 species of bivalves. From Redcar to Saltburn, from Filey to Speeton, 

 and from Sewerby southwards, immense sand reaches occur, where 

 Solens, Madras, and many other kinds of shells find a most congenial 

 habitat. Even more prolific in molluscs, though hardly so pleasant 

 to the collector, are the mudflats which border the mouth of 

 the River Tees, and the similar tracts of ground occurring in the 

 various harbours. 



The flat expanses of shore-rocks, called 'Scars,' on the Yorkshire 

 coast, are both numerous and extensive, and are, as everybody knows, 

 the habitat of a large group of shells, both univalve and bivalve. On 

 the south side of Flaraborough Head the chalk occupies a wide 

 area. For many miles south of Scarborough the shore consists 

 of flat scars of the gray (or Scarborough) limestone, or of the upper 

 sandstone series — these last occurring again in a similar way north 

 of the Castle Hill. Beds of the Upper Lias form the curiously 

 smooth surface between tide-marks near Whitby, and below 

 Huntcliffe w^e have an equally extensive display of the lower 

 beds. But richest of all our rocks to the marine zoologist, are 

 the long reefs which are only exposed to any extent at spring tides, 

 namely, Filey Brig, and the w^ell-known Redcar reefs. East Scar, 

 West Scar, and Salt Scar. 



Two other forms of sea-frontage (if I may coin such a compound) 

 occur on our coast — the rugged and broken cliffs, whose foot the 

 retiring waves scarcely expose even at the lowest tides, and the 



Sept. 1884. c 



