2 Notes and Comments. 



forms to Mr. Cotton, with the result that Yorkshire has pro- 

 duced at least three species new to science, the clearing up of 

 doubtful points with regard to other species, and the widening 

 of our knowledge as to the distribution of several more. 



THE STUDY OF FUNGI. 



Personally we should be glad if the appeal, issued by the 

 British Mycological Society resulted in a greater interest being 

 taken in the usually neglected study of the fungi, notwith- 

 standing the fact that Yorkshire leads a long way ahead of any 

 county in this respect, as was duly pointed out by Mr. Wager in 

 his British Association address. There is plenty of scope for 

 new work in this direction, both in the field and in the labora- 

 tory. Only a little before going to press we hear of the dis- 

 covery by Mr. J. Needham of Hebden Bridge, of a Lepiota 

 (L. medioflava Bond.) new to Britain. And this in a district 

 which has probably been as well worked as any in the British 

 Isles. 



TKE YORKSHIRE MYCOLOGICAL COMMITTEE. 



Excepting in the case of the Clavariaceae, there is not, we 

 are thankful to say, any need to ask Yorkshire societies to 

 send specimens to London or anywhere else. For years now 

 the Yorkshire Mycological Committee has held a premier 

 position in the country, and on the six or seven excursions held 

 each year by the Union, and also on the field meetings of the 

 forty affiliated societies, Yorkshire workers have regularly 

 collected the various forms of fungi, and forwarded them to the 

 Committee's energetic secretary, Mr. C. Crossland, of 4 Coleridge 

 Street, HaUfax, to Mr. A. Clarke, 16 St. Andrew's Road, Hud- 

 dersfield, or to other members. In the seventies and eighties 

 of last century. Dr. Franklin Parsons, The Rev. Canon W. 

 Fowler, Messrs. G. Massee, W. N. Cheesman, W. West, T. 

 Soppitt, and other members of the Union, were investigating 

 the county fungi. The result of all this has been the publica- 

 tion of numerous important memoirs in The Naturalist, and 

 in the Transactions of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, as well 

 as the well-known ' Yorkshire Fungus Flora,' by Messrs. Massee 

 and Crossland, the first, and, so far, the only county fungus 

 flora in existence. 



THE BRITISH MYCOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Yorkshire is also proud of the fact that the British Myco- 

 logical Society was founded within its borders, and on the 

 occasion of one of the field meetings of the Yorkshire 

 Naturalists' Union. It was on the occasion of the Yorkshire 

 Fungus Foray at Selby, in September i8g6, at which Mr. 

 Carleton Rea and the late Dr. Plowright had been invited to 

 attend, that the question of a British Society was brought to a 

 head, and most, if not all, of those present became members. 



Naturalist, 



