DISTRIBUTION OF THE STONECHAT (PRATINCOLA
RUBICOLA) IN YORKSHIRE.
By E.P. Butterfield.
A detailed account of the county of broad acres in this article would be out of place, suffice it to say that Yorkshire is the largest, and, with Lancashire, the most southern of the six northern counties of England, nearly through the centre of which runs the parallel of 54° north latitude, and contains 6095 square miles, or about 3,882,000 acres, and is divided into three Ridings, North, West, and East. The North Riding includes that portion of the county between the river Derwent and the county of Durham, the West Riding being separated therefrom by the Ouse, Ure, and the hills above Wharfedale; whilst the East Riding occupies the south-eastern portion of the county, and is divided by the Ouse from the West, and the river Derwent from the North Riding. One of the most striking physical features of the shire is the great central vale of York, which is narrow and somewhat elevated in the north, but as it approaches the Humber widens out into a large and swampy flat. East and west of this valley is enclosed by tracts of considerable elevation, which in the former terminates in the north in bleak moorlands, which attain a height of over 1000 ft.; in the latter the ground gradually increases in height until it ultimately forms part of the Pennine chain, which in Yorkshire attains some of its highest elevations on Whernside (2414 ft.), Penyghent (2273 ft.), Ingleborough (2373 ft.), and Dent Crag (2253 ft.), whose eastern sides give rise to the waters of the Wharfe, Aire, Nidd, tributaries of the Ouse, which flows into the Humber, the latter of which receives nearly all the drainage of the whole county; the exceptional portions of the county not drained by the Humber being a small portion of the west, which is drained by the Ribble, the north by the Tees, and the east directly by the German Ocean. The elevated tracts of the south of the east of the vale
