16 YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS' UNION. 
but it is self-contained in a remarkable degree, and withal not 
too large an area for convenient working. 
Our boundaries are definite, clear, and unmistakable, and 
within these boundaries is embraced a wonderful diversity of 
soil, climate, and physical configuration, of animal and vegetable 
life, and it is in verity and truth quite a perfect epitome of the 
island at large. 
Our river systems are in the main our own, complete from 
source to mouth, from the springs and little rills on our own 
lines of hills down to their embouchure on our own coast-line. 
Our geologists have the opportunity of studying nearly all 
the formations known in England, only the older volcanic and 
the newest eocene strata being absent, consequently our botanists 
and zoologists are able to observe species in all kinds of soil and 
situation. Even our smoke-begrimed manufacturing district, 
unlovely as it may appear, gives us on that very account the 
opportunity, only elsewhere afforded in Lancashire, of studying 
such phenomena as that of melanic variation in lepidoptera 
and we must not forget that here, where the struggle for life of 
our indigenous plants and animals against adverse conditions is 
keenest, is the region where the Union itself had its birth. 
Our position in the island of Britain, combined with the 
diversity of physical aspect, enables us to observe the mingling 
of northern and southern forms in the same district. So that 
here in Yorkshire where the noctule, the nightingale, the 
nuthatch, the dormouse, and the Kentish snail find their 
northern limit, we also find the dunlin and the curlew have their 
most southerly breeding-places, and the beautiful butterfly 
Erebia medea reaches the southern limit of its range. And 
philologically, as Prince Lucien Bonaparte states, the dividing 
line between the northern and southern forms of English speech 
runs across mid-Yorkshire. 
Meteorologically we enjoy all varieties of climate, from the 
cold and moist valleys of the Cleveland, Swalcdale, and Teesdale 
hills to the hot plain of York, and the comparatively rainless 
coast-tract of Bridlington Bay. 
In position and character again, our coast-line, with the 
tallest cliffs in England at Boulby, the matchless headland of 
Flamborough with its wondrous bird-life, and the low sand-hills 
of Spurn and Kilnsea, afford our ornithologists splendid oppor- 
tunities of observing bird-migration, and our geologists a series 
of fine exposures of succesive groups of strata. 
No wonder that with such a tract of country available for 
our investigations, we may, on the whole, look back with satis- 
faction on our past history, and survey the results achieved 
by our workers ; and that we may feel a justifiable degree of 
pride in the goodly heritage which God hath granted unto 
the Yorkshireman. 
