PROCEEDINGS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. Cxlix 
amount has to be deducted from the above figures to show the 
excess. The highest previous flood in recent years was on 7th 
February, 1894, when exactly the same height was registered— 
namely, 14 ft. 6 in. 
During the week preceding the flood, namely, from 25th to 31st 
January, westerly gales of extraordinary violence and continuance 
were experienced, which tended to force the water out of Loch Tay. 
On Friday, 27th February, the windstorm, which did so much 
damage in the South and West of Scotland, was not felt with the 
same severity in Perthshire. On that date, however, the barometer at 
Pitcullen fell to 28’344 inches, which is the lowest recorded for some 
years. The lowest temperature recorded during the season was 
11 deg. F., on 14th and 15th January, representing 21 degrees of 
frost, but there were no long-continued spells of frost. 
THE CHILDREN’S ESSAY COMPETITION. 
Another session of the Children’s Essay Competition has been 
successfully completed, the prizes having been distributed last week. 
Perhaps the most gratifying feature of the latter function was the 
remark made by Mr. Smith, His Majesty’s Inspector of Schools, that 
Perthshire held the lead amongst Scottish counties in regard to 
nature knowledge. This, I think, is a testimony, not only to the 
work of our Society during the last three decades, but also to the 
intelligence of both the teachers and scholars of the county. How 
well would such a testimony have gratified our founder, Dr. 
Buchanan White, had he been spared to hear it, for the encourage¬ 
ment of a love of Natural History amongst the young was an object 
that lay very near to his heart. 
I shall content myself with quotations from just two of the Essays, 
one from the town and the other from the country. From these 
extracts I think you will see that the children have not derived all 
their information from books or from the Museum labels, but have 
drawn some of their inspiration from the sun-lit fields and the mossy 
woods. 
One girl, 12 years of age, in the Southern District School, 
■describes the habits of the “ Daddy-long-legs ” as follows :—“ The 
Daddy-long-legs does not look like an insect that could do much 
harm. It has no jaws with which to eat our crops, neither does it 
bite us like the gnat, or sting us like the bee. It seems quite harm¬ 
less, and few would think that it was a very mischievous insect. But 
then we forget it has not always been a Daddy-long-legs. For a long 
time it was a grub, living under the ground, and feeding upon the 
roots of grass and corn. Often when these flies are young they do so 
much harm, that sometimes they will destroy a great part of the corn 
in a field. If we see a patch of grass in a field lying dead and 
withered, we may be sure that a Daddy-long-legs grub is lying hidden 
below. Sometimes farmers call this grub the ‘ Leather-jacket,’ 
because its skin is so very tough and strong. Its skin is of a dirty 
white colour, and is so wrinkled that it looks as if its skin were too 
big for it. When this grub is fully grown, it is not very long, 
