1 6 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 



and bears a few coarse irregular teeth in two rows on each jaw. 

 While its usual food consists of insect larvae and small worms it will 

 attack men and especially cattle wading in its haunts. In Carr Pond 

 it is quite rare and of no significance in the present connection. 



Finally there is the American medicinal leech, which must not be 

 confused with the European medicinal leech {Hirudo officinalis 

 Linnaeus) which has been introduced and become established in some 

 parts of New York State. The following remarks on the European 

 Medicinal Leech and Hirudo colchica by Dr. H. Grimm ('83, p. 54) 

 are of interest. " The medicinal leech is spread all over Russia, being 

 met with in tlie governments of St. Petersburg, .Novgorod and 

 Olonetz, and all the governments to the south of these. The num- 

 ber of places infested by leeches of course increases towards the 

 south ; but the real land of leeches is Trans-Caucasia, viz., the dis- 

 tricts of the Black Sea, Poti and Lenkoran. The deeply-shaded 

 rivers and forest-bogs of the Lenkoran district regularly teem with 

 leeches so that it is impossible to bathe there. In every net full of 

 ooze one draws up, some 20 or 30 leeches are sure to be found. In 

 the forties, fifties and sixties of this century, when the use of leeches 

 in medicine had reached its height, when the leeches in the Parisian 

 hospitals alone sucked out 90,000 kilogrammes of human blood, and 

 when 7,000,000 leeches were not enough for the London hospitals, — • 

 the demand for leeches, and therefore the sale of them, was very 

 considerable in Russia. As the central and northern governments had 

 not leeches enough of their own, the latter were brought (to Moscow 

 as a centre) from Bessarabia, Astrakhan and Trans-Caucasia. It is 

 true, a certain quantity of leeches was imported from Hungary, but 

 then the Lenkoran leeches were exported. 



"How great the sale of leeches was, can be judged (not having 

 any statistics) by the fact that many Trans-Caucasians (chiefly the 

 sectarian exiles) enriched themselves by exporting leeches. 



" However great our natural supply of leeches might have been, 

 it was apparently too small to satisfy the demand for them. So, on 

 one hand, special orders were issued by Government (§ 562 v. XII C. 

 of L.) 'rules for catching leeches in ponds and lakes,' (issued Sept. 21, 

 1848), which, by the bye, i) forbade leeches to be caught during 

 May, June and July, and 2) to take leeches either of too small a 

 size (not less than 2^^ inch.) or, large, old leeches, which were not 

 fit for medicinal purposes, but only for propagation of the species, 

 and 3) recommended the breeding of leeches. 



"And on the other hand, leech-breeding establishments were 

 started (apart from the above recommendation). Artificial leech- 

 ponds (or parks) were built on Sauvet's system, for instance, in 

 Moscow (]\I-r Parman), in St. Petersburg (M-r Gavriloff), in 

 Piatigorsk, in Nijni-Novgorod, on the Ural (by Malysheff, the 

 pisciculturist of 1855). 



" Soon, however, all these measures became unnecessary. Doctors 

 repudiated leeches. Yesterday, leeches were benefactors, today — 

 they were dangerous and harmful, and were therefore left in peace 

 in their native bogs." 



