2o8 
NATURE NOTES 
extends away to the horizon twelve or fourteen miles off. In 
summer the sand becomes very firm and dry. The view from 
this hill on a summer evening is sometimes perfect. 
The sea, blue as an Italian lake, creeps over the orange 
sands. To the north and east lie the Cumbrian and Pennine 
Mountains, the most noticeable being Black Coomb. Scafell 
Pike, Coniston Old Man (Alt Maen — High Hill), the Langdales, 
Helvellyn, Red Screes, Whernside and Ingleburgh. 
Well do I remember a September evening a few years ago, 
when I was waiting for a train at Kent’s Bank Station. A great 
thunderstorm was raging out at sea. The night was dark and 
lowering. The sands, wet and sodden, were illuminated every 
few seconds by the most extraordinary crimson lightning. The 
effect was most impressive. 
The sand in the Bay is largely augmented by soil, so that, 
when wet, it readily earns the title of “ mud ” which visitors often 
give to it. When the sands are really dry, however, one may 
walk or cycle over them for miles. The local schools play 
hockey here, and sand yachts on motor platforms break the 
speed limit at Grange. The Bay is formed by two estuaries, 
that of the Kent (Cymric — clear), which rises near Bell Mountain, 
and that of the Leven (Cymric — smooth), which drains Winder- 
mere. The latter is crossed at Ulverston (Ella’s stone — Viking) 
by a great railway bridge. Here is a small port which can 
boast of “ the shortest, straightest, deepest and widest canal in 
England.” At Arnside another bridge of equal size crosses the 
Kent estuary. The soil to the south of the Bay is millstone grit, 
that to the north limestone and Silurian. Near Humphrey Head 
a small patch of conglomerate crops up. The great cliffs of the 
Head, as also those of Whitbarrow Scar, are limestone. Whit- 
barrow Scar (800 feet) rises precipitously on almost every side 
and is probably the whitest hill in Britain, since there is very 
little soil upon it and the rock is so much covered with a white 
lichen. 
Bird life, such as it is, is abundant. Great flocks of gulls 
paddle on the sand and their weird cries are sometimes almost 
deafening. At Foulshaw Moss and near Fleetwood are great 
galleries. A famous one is to be seen on Walney Island. At 
Dallon Tower a heronry is created, and numbers of these birds 
may frequently be seen on the sands. Gannets sometimes appear, 
but are at once shot. 
Deep-sea birds, puffins, razorbills, cormorants never visit the 
Bay, yet some years ago I once found the beach below Humphrey 
Head strewn with the bodies of these birds. They must have 
been killed out at sea and carried up the Bay by the tide. Hawks 
and jackdaws are common, the latter especially, about the cliffs 
at Humphrey Head and amongst the ruins of Peel Castle in the 
Pile of Fouldray near Barrow. 
In winter the Bay is occasionally an extraordinary spectacle, 
being literally arctic. Great ice blocks churn around the viaducts 
and are piled high along the shore. The whole Bay is a mass 
