24 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 
The Ustilaginez of North Ayrshire. By D. A. Boyp. 
[Read 27th December, 1892.] 
Since the publication of the Mycologia Scotica in 1879, compara- 
tively little information has been recorded regarding the microfungi 
of the West of Scotland. In the various Supplements to Dr. 
Stevenson’s work, which have since appeared in the Scottish 
Naturalist, numerous additions have been made to mycological 
records for the area of “‘Clyde,” but these have been chiefly among 
the Hymenomycetes and other large forms; and although the 
important series of revisional papers, published from time to time 
by Professor James W. H. Trail, M.D., F.L.S., in the Scottish 
Naturalist, have greatly extended the list of Scotch species, most 
of the new records reported by him are for the northern and 
eastern districts, and comparatively few for the south-west. The 
only noteworthy contributions to the subject are contained in 
Professor Trail’s Report on the Micromycetes observed at the 
Conference of the Cryptogamic Society of Scotland held at 
Inveraray in the autumn of 1888 (Scot. Nat., Vol. IV., New 
Series, pp. 57-76), and in another paper by him in the same 
journal (l.c., pp. 224-226). 
In the absence of any systematic catalogue of the microfungi 
of the West of Scotland, the following list of Ustilaginex observed 
in North Ayrshire may perhaps possess some interest as a local 
contribution towards such a work. Most of the species enumerated 
appear to be widely distributed, and will probably be found to 
occur in other parts of the Clydesdale district. 
For a description of the British species, with much important 
information regarding their life-history, reproduction, &c., the 
student is referred to the admirable Vonograph of the British 
Uredinee and Ustilaginee by Mr. Charles, B. Plowright, F.L.S., 
M.R.C.S. 
