ts whole length. There is a larger species
to be found in this garden with a broad green dorsal fascia; but I have
not been able to procure one although I have offered a small reward to
any coolie who will bring me one." In a subsequent communication Mr.
Thwaites remarks "that the dorsal longitudinal fascia is of the same
width as the lateral ones, and differs only in being perhaps slightly
more green; the colour of the three fasciae varies from brownish-yellow
to bright green." He likewise states "that the rings which compose the
body are just 100, and the teeth 70 to 80 in each set, in a single row,
except to one end, where they are in a double row."]

[Illustration: LAND LEECHES IN PURSUIT]

[Footnote 2: The Minorite friar, ODORIC of Portenau. writing in A.D.
1320, says that the gem-finders who sought the jewels around Adam's
Peak, "take lemons which they peel, anointing themselves with the juice
thereof, so that the leeches may not be able to hurt them."--HAKLUYT,
_Voy._ vol. ii. p. 58.]

[Footnote 3: DAVY'S _Ceylon_, p. 104; MARSHALL'S _Ceylon_, p. 15.]

One circumstance regarding these land leeches is remarkable and
unexplained; they are helpless without moisture, and in the hills where
they abound at all other times, they entirely disappear during long
droughts;--yet re-appear instantaneously on the very first fall of rain;
and in spots previously parched, where not one was visible an hour
before, a single shower is sufficient to reproduce them in thousands,
lurking beneath the decaying leaves, or striding with rapid movements
across the gravel. Whence do they re-appear? Do they, too, take a
"summer sleep," like the reptiles, molluscs, and tank fishes? or may
they, like the _Rotifera_, be dried up and preserved for an indefinite
period, resuming their vital activity on the mere recurrence of
moisture?[1]

[Footnote 1: See an account of the _Rotifera_ and their faculty of
repeated vivifaction, in the note appended to this chapter.]

Besides a species of the medicinal leech, which[1] is found in Ceylon,
nearly double the size of the European one, and with a prodigious
faculty of engorging blood, there is another pest in the low country,
which is a source of considerable annoyance, and often of loss, to the
husbandman. This is the cattle leech[2], which infests the stagnant
pools, chiefly in the alluvial lands around the base of the mountain
zone, whither the cattle resort by day, and the wild animals by night