Rev. M. J. Berkeley and Mr. C. E. Broome on British Fungi. 259 



form another interesting subject for study, and have occasionally 

 become a source of error and confusion. Two examples will 

 sufficiently illustrate this. The large and elegant new species 

 of Lima (L. varians) has a surface when young covered with 

 beautifully large waved striae; a good series will show the 

 gradual disappearance of these until a mere remnant is seen 

 on the anterior border ; the figure becomes more gibbose and 

 elongated, and finally is devoid of all markings, except the 

 concentric lines of growth. It is found in the shelly Great 

 Oolite and Fimbria bed of the Inferior Oolite. Macrodon 

 Hirsonensis is another example. Phillips, in his ' Geology of 

 Yorkshire/ gives two shells the name of Cucullcea elongata, one 

 of which, t. 11. f. 43, is our species in its young state, with re- 

 gular longitudinal stria?. A broken specimen with striae more 

 irregular, but still in its young state, is the Cucullcea rudis of the 

 ' Mineral Conchology/ t. 447. Another variety of figure, more 

 advanced in age, is the Area elongata of Goldfuss, t. 123. f. 9. 

 Cucullaa Hirsonensis, Archiac, t. 27. f. 5, is a half-grown spe- 

 cimen with the longitudinal striae obliterated. The genus is de- 

 scribed in Mr. Buckman's ' Geology of Cheltenham/ but the spe- 

 cies there figured seems to be distinct from the one in question. 

 Our species is abundant in the planking beds, but more rare in 

 the Fimbria and Freestone beds of the Inferior Oolite. To pur- 

 sue the subject further would involve descriptions of individual 

 species useful only in a monograph devoted to the purpose. 

 Here these remarks may" fitly conclude with the expression of a 

 hope that the large number of our Great Oolite shells new to 

 science may ere long be given to the public*, and that the fossil 

 fauna of the Cotteswolds generally may by the instrumentality of 

 this Club acquire a " local habitation and a name." Probably 

 no district in England contains an equal number of fossil trea- 

 sures which have not as yet been transferred to the plate of the 

 engraver. 



XXVII. — Notices of British Fungi. By the Rev. M.J.Berkeley, 

 M.A., F.L.S., and C. E. Broome, Esq. 



[Continued from vol. xiii. p. 360.] 



[With a Plate.] 



*323. Agaricus platyphyllus, P. This species, which was 

 noticed before, occurred on old stumps in Leigh Wood near 

 Bristol, August 1848. The base of the stem was furnished with 



* Perhaps by raeani of the Psfoontogranliical Society. 



18* 



