34
THE MYCETOZOA :
and Devon, and (4) from Aberdeenshire, Elginshire, and
Nairnshire. The specimens from the first three counties
were collected for the most part by Mr, James Saunders,
A.L.S., of Luton, who has been for twenty-four years
an enthusiastic and earnest student of Mycetozoa. His
observations, carried on year after year in a great variety of
situations—in upland woods, on sand or chalk, in swampy
thickets, or among straw heaps lying undisturbed on open chalk
land—have added much to our knowledge of British Mycetozoa,
their habitats, and their distribution generally. Mr. Saunders
has also done much good service in making the study of My-
cetozoa popular and by attracting other observers to this field
of work. He has published lists of species found in the counties
of Beds, Herts, Bucks, Middlesex, and Essex, in the Transactions
of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society for 1911.
For the last nine years, Bedfordshire has had another success-
ful and diligent collector of Mycetozoa in Miss Katharine Higgins,
who has added new species to the county records. Amongst
them, one, Arcyria insignis, is new to Britain. I am greatly
indebted to Miss Higgins for having supplied me for the last
eight years with monthly reports of the species she has found.
The specimens from North Somerset were collected by
Miss Agnes Fry.13 Those from the south of that county were
found by Mr. Norman Hadden, who has also hunted most
successfully in North Devon. A list of North Devon Mycetozoa,
with full notes, was published by him in the Journal of Botany,
1916. The gatherings from South Devon were made by my
father and myself.
Our knowledge of the Mycetozoa of Aberdeenshire is due almost
entirely to the Rev. William Cran, of Skene, whose industry
and magnificent powers of vision have made known to us several
new species, and have brought to light a number not previously
found in Britain. To the Aberdeenshire list, I add the species
obtained during the ten-days' meeting of the British Mycological
Society at Forres, in the counties of Elgin and Nairn, in 1912.
It is with a warm feeling of gratitude that I thank my fellow-
workers and friends for allowing me to make use of their obser-
vations, and for all the invaluable help they have afforded me.
13 A list of these was published in the Proceeding of the Bristol Naturalists' Society, fourth
series, vol. iv., pt. I (1914).