MYCETOZOA FOUND NEAR LOUGHTON (EPPING FOREST). 101
In conclusion, I desire to express my grateful thanks to
Mr. C. F. C. Hawkes and to Mr. M. R. Hull, Curator of the
Museum at Colchester, with whom I have been in correspondence,
more especially on the subject of the Shaping Tools, and
to Dr. Searle and Mr. Robins for valued information and
criticism. My grateful thanks are also due to my sister, Miss
C. B. Linder, to whom I owe the suggestion about the addition
of the oyster shell to complete the three-legged stand.
MYCETOZOA FOUND NEAR LOUGHTON
(EPPING FOREST) IN THE WINTER OF 1940-41.
By JOSEPH ROSS.
BECAUSE of war conditions the Essex Field Club held no
forays in Epping Forest during the autumn of 1940.
The dry weather of the summer continued in October, but
November was a very wet month. Hunting for Mycetozoa at
the dates when the forays normally would have been held, in
all likelihood would have given meagre results ; I did not hunt
at the approximate dates, but, encouraged by the November
rainfall, searched in the neighbourhood of the Warren, Loughton,
in December, and in the following January when the weather
was favourable.
The area searched consists of two parts, (i) the copse near
the top of the slope running down to the Loughton-Buckhurst
Hill road, and (ii) the small piece of ground south of the avenue
of black poplars leading to the Forest Superintendent's residence.
The many kinds of trees growing in the copse were indicated in
the article on "Perichaena pedata G. Lister" in the Essex
Naturalist (vol. xxvi, part iv, pp. 183 and 184), but the value
of low growing brambles in preventing the disturbance of
decaying leaves by blustery winds was not emphasized there.
Hunting was confined almost wholly to decaying leaves,
and of twenty species found two occurred on wood only.
Approximately half the finds were species not met with or not
often met with at the Club's forays. A list of those recorded
is appended :
Physarum nutans Pers. This species, usually found on logs
and sticks, occurred twice on leaves.
B