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A NATURALIST'S HOLIDAY AMONGST 

 THE CUMBERLAND SANDHILLS. 



WALTER GYNGELL, 



ij, Gladstone Road, Scarborough. 



A resident on the rocky coast of North-eastern England, 

 especially if nature is to him an open and not a closed book, 

 finds a new world in the broad stretch of sandy beach backed by 

 the undulating sandhills — the characteristic coast of Cumber- 

 land, Lancashire, and some more southerly western counties. 



It has been my pleasure to spend a few days in such a district, 

 and the following notes, chiefly on bird-life, may be of interest 

 to lovers of nature. 



It was on the last day of May that I arrived at the selected 

 hunting-ground and found that the more genial spring of the 

 west was fully three weeks in advance of my home land of 

 north-east winds and sea mists. 



Having to change and wait an hour at a pretty railway 

 station, I had scarcely left the platform when I heard the sweet 

 notes of the Pied Flycatcher, whose aesthetic tastes lead him 

 every summer to our English Lake District, where he may 

 always be found in most abundance. Another hour's railway 

 ride, winding up and down and occasionally crossing broad 

 river estuaries, with now and then a peep at our higher English 

 hills, and I stop again at a little hamlet, washed by the waves 

 at every tide which comes up the estuary, and sheltered from 

 the winds by high mountain and moor. 



In this secluded spot many species of sea- fowl gather together 

 in summer colonies, and scratch their shallow nests and rear 

 their downy young in thousands. 



The first care, after settling down at the comfortable old inn 

 where I became the only guest, was to make the acquaintance 

 of the steward of his lordship the land owner, and obtain his 

 courteous permission to visit the bird colonies. Having arranged 

 with this gentleman to my satisfaction, and made an appoint- 

 ment with the gamekeeper for next day, in the evening I took 

 a gentle stroll in order to obtain a general view of the promised 

 land. A pleasant lane, leading up towards the mountains, gave 

 me the first full view of the stretch of lumpy sandhills running 

 away to north and south for many miles, with the broad opening 

 between the two ranges which marked the river's road to the sea. 



1902 May 1. 



