NOTES ON FRESHWATER ENTOMOSTRACA 163 



NOTES ON FRESHWATER ENTOMOSTRACA, 

 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO LOCH 



LEVEN. 



By THOMAS SCOTT, F.L.S., 

 Naturalist to the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



SOME time ago I had my attention directed to an interesting 

 correspondence of a semi -private nature, relating to the 

 presence of Copepoda in the River Leven the effluent of 

 Loch Leven, Kinross-shire. 



Along the banks of this river there are various public 

 works, such as powerloom factories, paper-mills, etc. At one 

 of these paper-mills, belonging to Mr. Tullis, Auchmuty, 

 minute red spots were observed from time to time in the 

 paper that was being made. It was shortly after the New 

 Year when these spots were first noticed, and they continued 

 to be observed for several weeks. For a time no satisfactory 

 reason could be given for the occurrence of the red spots, 

 but eventually when the strainers were examined numerous 

 little objects that at first were supposed to be fish spawn 

 were found collected upon them. These were afterwards 

 examined under the microscope, and were then seen to be 

 small freshwater crustaceans, chiefly Copepods, that had 

 evidently been carried down from the loch. On this 

 discovery being made, the origin of the red spots was easily 

 explained ; and moreover, when the spots themselves were 

 examined under the microscope, each spot was seen to be a 

 crushed Copepod, the test of the animal being in some 

 instances quite distinct 



When a lot of the little objects from the strainers was 

 transferred to a bottle of water, some of them were still alive 

 and commenced swimming about, but the majority were 

 dead. Globules of oily matter were visible, with the aid of 

 the microscope, inside the bodies of almost all the dead 

 specimens. 



When Mr. Tullis perceived, from the large numbers of 

 Crustacea on the strainers, that an extensive exodus of these 

 little creatures from Loch Leven was in progress, he wrote 

 to some friends, who like himself are interested in natural 



