268 The '■ Water-Flea " Scare in our City. [Sess. 



course, either absurd or beside the mark. Numerous " facts " 

 have been adduced fitted to terrify timid citizens into abjur- 

 ing water-drinking, as well as to confirm others in the wisdom 

 of their conduct regarding their choice of fluids. The days 

 of the St Mary's Loch scheme have been vividly recalled to 

 many, with this important difference, that the " horrid crea- 

 tures " with which we were then simply threatened are said 

 to have now arrived from classic St Mary's, but by the round- 

 about way of the Megget and the Talla, and are being served 

 out every day, and all the day long, to the sorely perplexed 

 and over-burdened ratepayers. 



This particular branch of nature -study has suddenly be- 

 come of some importance, and has already secured a consider- 

 able following. All sorts of possible and impossible denizens 

 of fresh water are alleged to have been detected and duly 

 noted by numerous observers. One writer, for example, dating 

 from Gilmerton, has given a most minute but utterly un- 

 scientific account of not fewer than eighteen "wriggling things," 

 each half an inch long, which he discovered in a water-meter. 

 A newspaper paragraph descriptive of this wonderful creature 

 was headed " Terrible monsters at Gilmerton." These " mon- 

 sters " were said to be light-brown in colour, to wriggle along 

 broadside on, to possess jointed scales on their back, to be 

 bent like part of a circle, and to have " a good number of 

 legs." " They are great cannibals," the writer adds. " My 

 lot ate one another till only one was left and a few legs." 

 Any number, we are informed, were in the pipes in the Gil- 

 merton water- district before the introduction of the Talla 

 water, so that they are no new importation. Their presence 

 is accounted for by this budding naturalist because of their 

 spawn — "if spawn there is," he cautiously adds — being so 

 minute as to pass through the filters. It need not be very 

 difficult in all this to perceive a glimmering of the truth, 

 and to detect our well-known friend the fresh-water shrimp 

 {Gammarus pulex). 



It has not yet been substantiated, however, that this 

 familiar amphipod has at any time found its way into our 

 water-cisterns. On the other hand, some microscopists have 

 been fairly revelling in the "hauls" they have lately been 

 securing. From different parts of the city have come reports 



