LEECH, /lirudo, a Linntean genus of annelida, of the order suctoria, now forming the family hintdinidce, and divided into it number of genera, some of which contain many species. They are mostly inhabitants of fresh waters, although some live among grass, etc., in moist places, and some are marine. They are most common in warm climates. The body is soft, and composed of rings like that of the earth-worm, but not furnished with bristles to aid in progression, as in the earth-worm; instead of which, a sucking disk at each extremity enables the leech to avail itself of its power of elongating and shortening its body, in order to pretty rapid locomotion. Time mouth is in the anterior sucking disk. Tim mouth of many of the species, as of the common medicinal leeches, is admirably adapted not only for killing and eating the minute aquatic animals which constitute the1• ordinary food, but for making little wounds in the higher animals, when opportunity occurs, through which blocd may be sucked. The mouth of the medicinal leech has three small white hard teeth, minutely serrated along the edges, and curved so as to form little semicircular saws, provided with muscles powerful enough to work them with great effect, and to produce a triradiate wound. The stomach is very large, and is divided into compartments, some of which have large lateral caeca; and a leech which has once gorged itself with blood retains a store for a very long time, little changed, in these receptacles, whilst the digestive procesS slowly goes on. The circulat. lug system consists of four great pulsating trunks, one dorsal, one ventral, and two lateral, ,with their branches; there is no heart. The aUmtion of the blood takes place by numerous small apertures on the ventral surface, leading into respiratory sacs. Leeches; are oviparous, and each individual is androgynous. They have small eyes—in the medicinal leeches ten—appearing as black spots near the mouth, and of the most simple structure. Leeches frequently change their skin; and one cause of the great mortality so often experienced among leeches kept for medicinal use is the want of aquatic plants in the vessels containing them, among which to rub themselves for aid in this process, and for getting quit of the slime which their skins exude. Leech aquaria in which aquatic plants grow are therefore much more favorable for the health of leeches than the tanks and vessels formerly in use.—The MEDICINAL LEECII (IL snedicinalis or ;lawful:saga officinalis) is a rare native of Britain; but leech-gathering is the occupation of some poor persons, particularly in Cumberland. Leeches, however, are generally imported from Hamburg and from the s. of Europe. The collecting of leeches gives employment to many persons in some parts of Europe; and leech-gatherers sometimes adopt the simple mode of wading into the water, and seizing the leeches which attach themselves to their bare legs. Pieces of liver, etc., are sometimes used for baits, and a kind of net is sometimes used. Some parts of Europe are supplied from more eastern regions. Slight differences, have led to the establishment of two species—one more northern, and one more southern—among those commonly imported into Britain. The
more northern—which is that above named—has the belly spotted with black; the more southern (IL provincialis, or sanguisaga medicinah:s or meridionalls) has the belly unspotted. Other species are used for the same medicinal purpose of blood-sucking in other parts of the world. The ancients were well acquainted with leeches, but their medicinal use seems to have originated in the middle ages. Many millions of leeches are annually imported into Britain.—The HortsE-LEEcu (hcemopis sanguz:vrba) is com mon in Britain; it is mach larger than the medicinal species, but its teeth are compara tively blunt, and it is little of a blood-sucker—notwithstanding the popular notion--and useless for medicinal purposes. It feeds greedily on earth-worms, which issue from the banks of the ponds or sluggish streams which it inhabits.—In many parts of India, as in the warm valleys of the Himataya, the moist grass swarms with leeches, some of the m very small, but very troublesome to cattle and to men who have occasion to walk throt:gh the grass. Sir James E. 'ferment's description of the land-leech of Ceylon (hcemadipra Ceylaniea) is very amusing. In size, it is about an inch in length, and as fine as a com mon knitting-needle, bat capable of distension to the thickness of a quill and a length of nearly 2 inches. It can insinuate itself through the meshes of the finest stocking. It is always ready to assail a passing traveler .or quadruped. The coffee-planters arc obliged to wear of closely-woven cloth for protection. Horses are driven wild by these pests, "and stamp the ground in fury, to shake them from their fetlocks, to which they hang in bloody tassels." The bare legs of p•lanquin-bearers are adorned with clusters of them like hunches of grapes. Their numhers.have often occasioned the death of man compelled to spend days where they abounded. The moist valleys of Java, Sumatra, Chili, and other tropical countries swarm with land-leeches as much as those of India and Ceylon.
LEECH„TottN, an English artist, was b. in London in 1817, and received his educa tion at the charter-house. The reputation of this artist is almost entirely associated • with Punch, to which, beginning about 1840, he contributed thousands of humorous sketches. These sketches are frequently as full of grace as of humor; the drawing is often excellent; and his female faces have a quiet, healthful beauty, which would be attractive in the ball-room, but more attractive by the fireside and with children on the knee. In the Punch sketches he has satirized keenly, yet, on the whole, humanely, the vagaries of male and female attire, the precocity of the young, the pomp of paterfamilias, the pride of domestic servants, and the singular relations which sometimes subsist between time parlor and the kitchen. To the future historian of the Victorian cra these admirable sketches will be invaluable.
A collection of Leech's best contributions to Panels has been published separately, in several series, under the title of Pictures of Life and Character; also a volume of Pencil Ingsfrom Punch. Ile died Nov., 1864.