Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/69

 NARROW ridge of sandhills, a natural breakwater for Grimsby, Immingham, and other ports, runs for some three miles between the Humber and the sea. A little to the north the restless waves are eating their way into the crumbling brown cliffs, which scarcely rise 20 feet above the shore. A fine beacon, a day landmark, stands over 500 yards inland of its submerged predecessor, and dated houses are also marked with the distance from the sea when they were built. One of these near the beacon now stands empty and condemned; the tide broke through its frail barriers, burst open its door, and forced the occupants to seek refuge in the upper story, whence they were rescued through a window. During exceptional tides the sea and Humber meet north of Kilnsea, and for three days practically all communication was cut off from the mainland during one of my visits, for the tide is landlocked by the walls, and another tide is up before the water has drained off. The walls, though broken in places, permitted passage for the energetic postman, but no one else troubled to go through. The clay beach, thinly covered with drift sand and gravel, shows where cliffs once stood; in the Humber miles of level "clays," slippery and often sticky to walk on, cover the sites of the lost villages of Holderness; the curlew and grey plover whistle where once the fields were tilled and a large population travelled dryshod and were securely housed.

At Spurn Head, where the ridge widens out and ends, there is a small but important official colony, familiar