At Home with Wild Nature 



reed-hidden secrets. It is the home of numberless 

 repulsive leeches ! One hot day I stood knee-deep in it, 

 behind a leafy screen, watching a mother dabchick 

 giving her family of dusky babies their first lesson in 

 watercraft, and upon returning to dry land to don my 

 socks and boots discovered a much-inflated leech work- 

 ing overtime on the calf of my leg. There was neither 

 pain nor irritation attending his efforts, so far as I was 

 concerned, but besides enjoying a good meal he opened 

 a vein that flowed freely for two hours. Do what I 

 would I could not stop it. I imagine he had ejected 

 something into the puncture from his chemical factory 

 that prevented the blood from congealing. At any rate, 

 scientists tell me that the leech uses a preservative, 

 which acts upon the blood he imbibes like boracic acid 

 on milk ; it keeps it fresh and flowing until it is required 

 for digestive purposes. 



Amongst the trees in the hinterland of the eastern 

 shores of our sequestered pool wood ants live in vast 

 numbers. I was waiting one day for the westerning sun 

 to help me to kinematograph some of their barbarities 

 towards inadvertent spiders, caterpillars, and other 

 victims, when a mischievous idea entered my idle mind, 

 namely, to kill time by trying an experiment. Off I 

 went and secured a capful of ants and their eggs from a 

 neighbouring hill, and poured them over the pile of pine 

 needles and fragments of bark I had under observation, 

 expecting to see a great battle. Not a bit of it; the 

 strangers were welcomed with open arms, so to speak, 

 and shown the greatest hospitality, by having all their 



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