84 Crossland ; The Stmh of Fungi in Yorkshire. 



Fungi. It is illustrated by 182 plates, upon which are figured 

 231 species. There were two issues : one coloured, the other 

 plain. About 220 of the 231 are easily identified, and have been 

 accepted and quoted under various names in their works by 

 subsequent European authors, as Persoon, Fries, Rabhen- 

 horst, and others on the Continent, and by Berkeley, Cooke, 

 Stephenson, and Massee in this country. Many were species 

 new to science, and others previously undescribed in Britain. 

 Many of the plates are signed ' James Bolton, Stannary, near 

 Halifax.' He etched all his own plates both in this and in 

 other works dealing with different branches of natural histor}'. 

 He was an ' all round ' naturalist, with, at least, forty years 

 experience in the Halifax district — 1758-1799. Not only 

 birds and butterflies, flowering plants and ferns, but mosses, 

 hepatics, algae, lichens, and fungi came wdthin his ken. His son, 

 or brother, Thomas, collected butterflies, moths, beetles, shells, 

 and fossils. 



We learn that early on in his natural history observations, 

 he took an interest in this subject. In 1788 he says : — ' I have 

 carefully observed, drawn, and descifibed the plants of this 

 order, when in season, for twenty-seven years past, having 

 drawings in my possession which I made in 1761.' He rightly 

 remarked that the Cryptogams were the most entertaining 

 branch of botany, but had up to that time been superficially 

 regarded. Referring more particularly to fungi, he said :- — 

 ' That our knowledge of . . . [these], the last order of this class, 

 is very deficient will evidently appear from [the fact] that a 

 greater number of its species have been actually gathered in a 

 compass of ground not exceeding eight or ten miles round 

 Hahfax, than has yet been ascertained in our best and most 

 correct Catalogues of British Plants.' ^ 



\\'e learn incidentally that his investigations were constant. 

 In speaking of the irregular appearance of fungi, he says : — 

 ' In September, 1777, the Helvella mitra grew in several woods, 

 in hedges, under trees, and even in pastures and meadows, in 

 this neighbourhood, plentifully ; since then, in the space of ten 

 years, though my researches have been regularly kept up, I 

 have not met with more than three or four specimens of that 

 plant.' We have had many similar experiences, several of 

 which are narrated in the ' Flora of Halifax.' 



A remarkable instance is furnished by one of Bolton's 

 own species — Coprinus oblediis. This he figured and described 



Naturalist, 



