ARTICULATA. ANNELIDA. 



the skin of the patient tense, these teeth are pressed 

 against it, until three cuts are made to some depth, 

 and the blood thus liberated, is sucked largely into 

 the stomach of the animal. It would appear that 

 this instinct is a direct and exclusive ordination of 

 Providence for man's advantage. That blood is 

 not the natural food of the animal, is probable 

 from the fact that, in the streams and pools which 

 they inhabit, not one in a hundred, could in the 

 common course of things ever indulge such an appe- 

 tite ; and even when received into the stomach, it 

 does not appear to be digested; for though it will 

 remain there for weeks without coagulating or be- 

 coming putrid, yet the animal usually dies, unless 

 the blood be vomited through the mouth. The 

 demands for these useful creatures, at least for one 

 species, the Medicinal Leech (H. Medicinalis), for 

 the purposes of surgery, have caused them to become 

 scarce with us, but great numbers are annually im- 

 ported from the continent. The following brief 

 notice of Leech-fishing in France, from the Medical 

 Gazette, is so graphic, that we willingly quote it : 



" If ever you pass through La Brenne, you will 

 see a man, pale and straight-haired, with a woollen 

 cap on his head, and his legs and arms naked: he 

 walks along the borders of a marsh, among the spots 

 left dry by the surrounding waters, but particularly 

 wherever the vegetation seems to preserve the sub- 

 jacent soil undisturbed ; this man is a Leech-fisher. 

 To see him from a distance, his woe-begone aspect, 

 his hollow eyes, his livid lips, his singular gestures, 



