2IO FLEAS, FLUKES AND CUCKOOS 



painless and it is for this reason that they can obtain copious feeds 

 without attracting the host's attention. The medical profession, for 

 hundreds of years, used them for blood-letting and in this manner 

 claimed to cure innumerable diseases. Thomas MoufFet remarked that 

 "it were too tedious to reckon up all the melancholique and mad people 

 that have been cured by applying leeches to the Hemorrods in their 

 fundaments." Nevertheless, he was much impressed by the cure of the 

 noble Richard Cavendish. " Now to the great wonder of the court he 

 walks alone without help and being sound and void of all pain, he lives 

 an old man." It is of course impossible to know for certain if a duck is 

 tickled or worried by leeches attached to its vent, but it is unlikely 

 that their presence is in any way beneficial. 



Duck leech, Protoclepsis tesselata, 

 from trachea of a teal (x 5.5) 



