NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 
25 
New British Fungi. —In this month (December) I have had the 
pleasure of finding, among others, two fungi belonging to a group 
hitherto little known in Britain, viz.: the Gymnomycetece. These two 
species were Gymnomyces Ruber , Van Tieghem, and G. Reesii , 
Baranetzky.—W. B. Grove, B.A. 
A Neolithic Implement.— In the summer of 1884, a curious stone 
implement was found in the alluvial gravel of the Trent, at Carlton, 
about three miles north-east of Nottingham. It was found at the 
depth of about a foot in the alluvial plains half a mile from the present 
course of the river, by Mr. W. Stevenson, of Scarborough, during the 
progress of excavations there, and although it was dug up so long ago, 
no record of it has, I believe, up to the present time been made. I 
may, therefore, perhaps be permitted to make some mention of it here. 
The implement is about 12J inches in length, slightly curved, and 
thicker at one end than the other, being not much unlike a cucumber 
in shape. It is about seven inches in circumference at the end that 
is thickest, both ends being rounded, however, after the style of a 
pestle. The implement has evidently been ground and smoothed into 
its present shape, though it has suffered considerable surface disin¬ 
tegration since, and is pitted all over. It has been made apparently out 
of greenish grey metamorpliic ash, resembling some of the Charnwood 
rocks and contains rounded crystals of quartz, a few minute fragments 
of purple slaty rock, and bits of greenish claystone. The implement 
appears to belong to the class of polished celts described in the sixth 
chapter of Mr. Evans’s “ Ancient Stone Implements of Britain,” 
though it is not exactly like any that are there figured. Implements 
of this character, observes Mr. Evans, “ are most numerously re¬ 
presented of all in collections of antiquities. There is great range in 
size and variation in form, though the general character is in the main 
uniform, among these polished implements.” He divides them into 
four classes according to the section presented by the middle of the 
blade, thus (1) those sharp or but slightly rounded at the sides, &c., 
(2) those with flat sides, (3) those with oval section, (4) those present¬ 
ing abnormal peculiarities. The implement in question, I should say, 
belongs to the third division rather than to any other. It resembles 
the lateral view of Fig. 66, more than any other given by Evans, 
except that it is round in section and more elongated compared with 
its diameter. This relic of Neolithic times is to be handed over, I 
understand, to the Natural History Museum, at Nottingham University 
College.—J. Shipman, F.G.S. 
Reports of Societies. 
BIRMINGHAM NATURAL HISTORY AND MICROSCOPICAL 
SOCIETY.— Biological Section, Meeting December 8th.—Professor 
Hillliouse, M.A., in the chair. The Rev. H. Boyden, B.A., read a 
paper on “ The Flora of the Rea Valley,” in which he gave first a 
graphic description of the course of the river, the physical features of 
its valley, and its geological formation, and then went on to call 
attention to the leading characters of its flora, the rare plants he had 
