THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 

 No. 22. OCTOBER 1869. 



XXV. — On some curious Fossil Fungi from the Blade Shale of 

 the NortJiumberland Coal-field. By ALBANY HANCOCK, 

 F.L.S., and Thomas Atthey*. 



[Plates IX. & X.] 



It is now about ten years ago that a few sections of certain 

 lenticular bodies were made and their peculiar tubular ramifi- 

 cations revealed. These bodies were then supposed to be of 

 vegetable origin, and were procured in the Cramlington Black 

 Shale. At the time we took these tubular ramifications to be 

 those of a parasitic fungus related to the unicellular fungi 

 described by KoUiker f ; and as such our specimens were ex- 

 hibited at one of the early microscopic soirees held by the 

 Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club. 



Since we first became acquainted with these curious and 

 interesting bodies, we have collected a vast number of speci- 

 mens (not less than 150) at Cramlington, Newsham, and otlier 

 localities ; and, having been engaged for the last few months 

 investigating the subject, we now propose to give a succinct 

 account of the results at which we have arrived, reserving for 

 some future occasion more complete details of our researches. 



First, then, with regard to the bodies themselves in which 

 the peculiar structure alluded to is found. They are frequently 

 circular, a good deal depressed and lenticular, with one side 

 generally flatter than the other, sometimes quite flat. The 

 largest are upwards of -^ inch in diameter and nearly -j-V inch 

 in thickness. Oval, depressed forms also occur, one of which 

 in our possession is -V inch in length, though one extremity 

 is wanting, and -j-^ inch wide. But by far the greater number 



* Communicated by the Authors, having been read at the Meeting of 

 the British Association held at Exeter in 1869. 



t See Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. .3. vol. iv. p. 300, Oct. 1850. 



Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. TW. iv. 16 



