HIRUDO. 15 
does it derogate from the interests of physiologists that the products of 
the creation are accessible ? 
Authors seem to have been perplexed in finding a name for the 
Hirudo octo-oculata different from that by which it is thus distinguished. 
But I do not see that any of them merits preference. Therefore I mean 
to retain Hirudo octo-oculata or vulgaris in the little I have to say on the 
subject, trusting to render it sufficiently explicit. 
The concomitant delineations will aid the description. 
The principal distinctions that I have observed among many speci- 
mens consist in size and in colour. They are larger or smaller accordingly, 
lighter and darker, all tending to red or brownish-red, plain, or figured. 
Length above two inches ; breadth above a line and a half; body 
nearly linear, flattened, especially when in motion.—Plate II. fig. 1, 
quiescent ; fig. 2, extended. 
This animal is divided into numerous segments, 99 or 100, accord- 
ing to M. Moquin Tandon; the sides bounded by a clear margin, scarcely 
visible unless in a state of repletion. Eight minute black ocular specks 
are on the anterior extremity ; six of them distributed singly ; but the 
last on each side having a fellow, thus constituting a pair ; fig. 3, en- 
larged.” One of the pair is in continuation of the ocular arc, as it may 
be called ; the other is inner or nearer to the medial line of the body. 
Viewed from a distance, the animal is of smooth, plump, uniform 
aspect ; but narrower inspection shews it to be of reddish-brown colour, 
mottled with black, as if divided into compartments, whence another 
more expressive specific name might have been given perhaps—Hirudo 
tapes, the Carpet Leech. Considerable difference subsists in the intensity of 
colour, but the elements of all are reddish-brown, sometimes very dark, 
and rendering the aspect of certain subjects of much coarser appearance 
than others. The peculiar marking of the surface is not to be over- 
looked.—Fig. 4, enlarged. 
This species is less impatient of the light than many others. It is 
very restless ; but, like all the rest, more tranquil in the morning. 
It isa fierce, active, and voracious creature ; feeding greedily on 
flesh, and even waging a destructive warfare against its own tribe. 
