Chap. XIII.] ANNELIDES. — LEECHES. 
479 
cacies for the breakfast table; and the delicate little 
pea crab, Pontonia inflata \ recalls its Mediterranean 
congener' 2 , which attracted the attention of Aristotle, 
from taking up its habitation in the shell of the living 
pinna. 
Annelida. - — The marine Annelidas of the island 
have not as yet been investigated; a cursory glance, 
however, amongst the stones, on the beach at Trinco- 
malie and in the pools that afford convenient basins for 
examining them, would lead to the belief that the marine 
species are not numerous ; tubicole genera, as well as 
some nereids, are found, but there seems to be little 
diversity, though it is not impossible that a closer scrutiny 
might be repaid by the discovery of some interesting 
forms. 
Leeches. — Of all the plagues which beset the traveller 
in the rising grounds of Ceylon, the most detested are 
the land leeches. 3 They are not frequent in the plains, 
1 Milne Edw., Hist Nat Crust, 
vol. ii. p. 360. 
2 Pinnotheres veterum. 
3 Hcemadipsa Ceylanica, Bosc. 
Blainv. These pests are not, how- 
ever, confined to Ceylon ; they 
infest the lower ranges of the 
Himalaya. — Hooker, vol. i. p. 
107; vol. ii. p. 54. Thunbeeg, 
who records {Travels, voi. iv. p. 
232) having seen them in Ceylon, 
likewise met with them in the 
forests and slopes of Batavia. 
Marsden (Hist p. 311) complains 
of them dropping on travellers in 
Sumatra. Knorr found them at 
Japan ; and it is affirmed that 
they abound in islands farther to 
the eastward. M. Cay encoun- 
tered them in Chili. — (Moqtjin- 
Tandon, Hirudinees, p. 211, 346). 
It is very doubtful, however, 
whether all these are to be referred 
to one species. M. De Blainville, 
under H. Ceylanica, in the Diet, 
de Scien. Nat. vol. xlvii. p. 271, 
quotes M. Bosc as authority for 
the kind which that naturalist de- 
scribes being "rouges et tachetees;" 
which is scarcely applicable to the 
Singhalese species. It is more 
than probable therefore, consider- 
ing the period at which M. Bose 
wrote, that he obtained his infor- 
mation from travellers to the further 
east, and has connected with the 
habitat universally ascribed to 
them from old Knox's work (Part 
I. chap, vi.) a meagre description, 
more properly belonging to the 
land leech of Batavia or Japan. 
In all likelihood, therefore, there 
