Horse leech

“ There is amongst the pictures of “Life and Character” a drawing of a sportsman who has been thrown from his horse. He has fallen upon his head, and as he raises it, stunned and bewildered, and but half conscious, the sensations that must have possessed him are realized for us in a manner so marvellous, so wonderful in its originality and truth, as to convince one that the accident must have happened to the man who drew the picture; and this was the case, for the fallen man was Leech himself, says Mr. Adams, who in charging a fence was thrown, his horse falling at the same time. ”

“ In the delineation of hunting scenes, however, he falls far behind John Leech, and this inferiority is strikingly manifested in the illustration to which we are now referring. If you compare the fragile men, horses, and hounds, with those in Leech’s last etching, you cannot fail to be struck with the vigour and life-like reality of the latter drawing. Browne’s women as a rule are delicate, fragile, consumptive-looking creatures. The one in the etching referred to is both physically weak and a bad horsewoman to boot—sitting her horse with all the ungracefulness of a sack of flour. ”

“ Leech Exhibition which I allow myself to make, I claim to be in the position of the huntsman whose experience of the horse made his opinion of that animal valuable; my own experience of pictures, as it extends over fifty years, may fairly claim for me the right of judgment, and I acknowledge myself to be one of those who thought the exhibition of "Sketches in Oil" did not increase Leech's reputation; though it happily did increase his own fortune, or the fortune of somebody else.
Dr. Brown says that Leech "obtained a great mastery over oil-colours." The huntsman may have thought as much ”

“ The hard driving rain beats downways and sideways, frontways and backways—all ways at once. The horses know not which way to duck to evade the storm. In less than a minute Miss De Glancey is as drenched as if she had taken a shower-bath. "The smart hat and feather are annihilated; the dubious frizette falls out; down comes the hair; the bella-donna-inspired radiance of her eyes is quenched; the crinoline and wadding dissolve like ice before the fire; and ere the love-cured Earl lifts her off her horse at the Punch Bowl at Rockbeer, she has no more shape or figure than an icicle. ”

“ Briggs is unfortunate in respect of horseflesh; the animals he selects are none of them free from vice, and in their various—and often successful—attempts to unseat their rider, they give the artist opportunities of showing his power of representing almost every action of which the horse is capable in the indulgence of that propensity. The enterprising sportsman chases the fox, coming in at the death, or soon after it—anyway, in time to give the huntsman half-a-sovereign for the brush, only he must "say nothing about it." ”

“ In his early works, dealing as they did chiefly with the London life of the street or the home, we find the horse playing an inferior part; and it was not till he felt the importance of varying his subjects, and of supplying the public with the sporting scenes they love so much, that, mounted by his friend Adams, he joined the "Puckeridge" and became one of the "field."
Leech was a timid rider. He much preferred an open gate to a thickset hedge, and the highroad to either. He must, however, have frequently been in [Pg 41] full career with the "field" ”

“ Leech, on the shore between Herne Bay and Reculvers, whence altogether eleven specimens have been obtained, six found by Mr. Leech, and five subsequently by Messrs. Evans and Prestwich and Wyatt. [3] In the gravel near bedford, again associated with remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, hippopotamus (?) , ox, horse, and deer, Mr. Wyatt has found implements resembling both of the two principal types found at Abbeville and Amiens. ”

“ As there is a prejudice among the country people that Leeches never breed well till they have tasted blood, it is said that they drive their horses and cows into the water inhabited by the Leeches, and consequently that the Leech districts are remarkable for their wretched-looking horses and cattle. Leeches must be five years old before they are fit for medical purposes; and they are caught in shallow water in spring by people going in with naked feet and ankles, to which the Leeches adhere, when they are picked off and put in baskets provided for the purpose. ”

“ Leech’s gentle yielding nature influenced him then as always; and he went to St. Bartholomew’s, where under Mr. Stanley, the surgeon of the hospital, he worked 16 hard and delighted his master by his excellent anatomical drawings. From these studies may be traced, I think, much of the knowledge of the human form, and above all of proportion, always displayed in his work; for in those wonderful drawings, whether a figure is tall or short, fat or thin, whether he deals with a child or a giant, with a dog or a horse, no disproportion can be found. ”

“ When refreshed by tobacco and repose he resumes his horse-chase, and ultimately succeeds in finding the animal in the possession of a rustic, who had amused himself by nearly galloping him to death. Tom Noddy is a delightful little creature; his numerous escapades are plentiful in "Pictures of Life and Character," and will be for all time a hearty, healthy pleasure to all who study them.
Many attempts were made to betray Leech into personality. ”

“ My dear Charley,
“If you could ride my horse to-morrow (Thursday) , pray do; it would save your own, and do her good. And the meet is close to you—Langley Green. I should have written before, but I have been harassed with work beyond measure. And as it is, the first number of ‘Handley Cross’ cannot come out until March. Mind you have the mare well worked, there’s a good fellow, as I don’t want, like our friend Briggs, to find her disagreeably fresh.
*****
“Believe me always yours faithfully,
“John Leech. ”

“ All leeches are very extensile and can contract the body to a plump, pear-shaped form, or extend it to a long and worm-like shape. They frequently progress after the fashion of a “looper” caterpillar, attaching themselves alternately by the anterior and the posterior sucker. Others swim with eel-like curves through the water, while one land-leech, at any rate, moves in a gliding way like a land Planarian, and leaves, also like the Planarian, a slimy trail behind it. Leeches are usually olive green to brown in colour, darker patches and spots being scattered over a paler ground. ”

“ They experience the greatest torture if they happen to swallow, while drinking, a horseleech, an animal which people are beginning, I find, to call almost universally a “blood-sucker.” The leech fastens upon the wind-pipe, and produces intolerable pain.
The skin of the back is extremely hard, that of the belly is softer. They are not covered with any kind of bristles, nor does the slender tail furnish them with any protection from the annoyance of flies; for vast as these animals are, they suffer greatly from them. Their skin is reticulated, and invites these insects by the odor it exhales. ”

“ In the live animal the body can be greatly elongated and narrowed or much shortened and broadened. It is composed of many segments (not as many as there are cross-lines however; each segment is transversely annulated) , and bears at each end on the ventral surface a sucker, the one at the posterior end being the larger. These suckers enable the leech to cling firmly to other animals. The mouth is at the front end of the body on the ventral surface and is provided with sharp jaws. Leeches live mostly on the blood of other animals which they suck from the body. ”

“ On one end of its worm-like body is a large sucker by which the animal fastens itself to the ground, and at the other end is a smaller sucker, in the middle of which is a chitinous mouth that makes a triangular puncture. As items of materia medica, leeches were described in dispensatories, or compilations of medicaments, and sold by apothecaries, both to physicians and directly to patients. The species most commonly used for bleeding was Hirudo medicinalis, indigenous to the streams and swamps of Central and Northern Europe, and known in commerce as the Swedish or German leech. ”

“ There is nothing like being used to a thing, and when you remember that many people derive their whole support from the leeches they gather, you will not wonder that they do not fear a few leech bites. I do not suppose they lose much blood; no doubt the gatherers pick them up pretty quickly and put them into their collecting cases; besides the chief flow of blood from a leech-bite occurs after the leech has been removed; the flow is encouraged by the application of warm fomentations, but the cold water of a pool would stop the flow of blood in the case of the man's legs. ”

“ In the East, where many of our Territorial regiments are now stationed, we come across another species of leech even more injurious to mankind than Limnatis nilotica. This Asiatic leech is known as Haemadipsa zeylanica, and is one of a considerable number of leeches which have left the water, their natural habitat, and have taken to live on land.
From India and Ceylon, throughout Burma, Cochin China, Formosa to Japan, the Philippines, and the Sunda Island, this terrible, and at certain elevations ubiquitous, pest is spread. It lives upon damp and moist earth. ”

“ Leeches have many enemies:— water-rats, voles, the larvae of the Dytiscus beetle, the larvae of Hydrophylus, the Nepa or water-scorpion, the larvae of the dragonfly, and the adult Dytiscus—all feed upon them. Many birds also eat leeches; and it is recorded that at one artificial leech-farm, where there were 20,000 leeches, they were all eaten up in twenty-four hours by an invasion of ducks. Frogs and newts also devour them, and they are not above eating their own brothers. Aulostoma will devour its own species as readily as it will an earthworm. ”

“ We passed our time while the mules were at bait in visiting the springs. There is a cold creek 200 yards below the station, and close by the hut a warm rivulet, said to contain leeches. The American hirudo, however, has a serious defect in a leech—it will not bite; the faculty, therefore, are little addicted to hirudination; country doctors rarely keep the villainous bloodsuckers, and only the wealthy can afford the pernicious luxury, which, imported from Spain, costs $12 per dozen, somewhat the same price as oysters at Nijni Novorod. ”

“ But soon another leech, attracted by the flowing blood, takes the place of the one which was removed, and constant care is necessary to avoid being victimised by those little insects, of which the voracity far exceeds that of our common leeches.
Our way lay through these singular creations of nature, and I was engaged in looking at and examining the curiosities around me, while my Indians were seeking some kind of game—deer, buffalo, or wild boar—to replace our stock of rice and venison, which was exhausted. ”

“ When leeches are applied to a part, it should be thoroughly freed from down or hair by shaving, and all liniments, &c., carefully and effectually cleaned away by washing.
3302. If the leech is hungry it will soon bite, but sometimes [571] great difficulty is experienced in getting them to fasten on. When this is the case, roll the leech into a little porter, or moisten the surface with a little blood, or milk, or sugar and water. ”

“ This particular leech is swallowed by man, by domestic cattle, and doubtlessly by wild animals, with their drinking-water. Amongst the medical writers of the Eastern world in classical times who mention leeches there was always, as there was amongst the authors of the Talmud, a great and haunting fear of leeches being swallowed, and these writers mostly wrote from the area where Limnatis nilotica still abounds. ”

“ If the animals are quite hungry, the slight shadow of the hand, imperceptible though it be to our eyes, will be instantly recognized by them, and a lively scene will follow, every Leech rising up, supported on its posterior sucker, and swinging at full length back and forth, from side to side, round and round, as if intensely eager to reach something. ”

“ Numbers of the hunting scenes were facts, and the persons represented were Leech and his friend—notably [Pg 43] one in which the artist is riding a mare afflicted with the "freshness" he dreaded, which his friend observing, shouts, "Give her her head, Jack! give her her head!" while it is pretty evident that more "head" will lead to the rider being swept from the saddle by the branches through which the mare is plunging.
"Barlow, Derbyshire,
"July, 1852.
"My dear Charley,
"You will see from the above address that I am still rusticating. ”

“ The progression of the leech is performed by undulating movements and the prehensile action of the suckers—head and tail. The eyes are ten in number, near the mouth and at the top of the head. The mouth is furnished with numerous tri-radiate teeth, but in some leeches they are not sharp, as in the “medicinal” variety. It is known that both sexes are represented in every leech, but they are not self-reproductive.
The earth-worm, so familiar to all, has been lately raised into importance. It lives in clay, and bores its way through the ground. ”

“ The great leech is still there in the deep hole, because when people look down they see something alive moving about on the bottom, and although they can not distinguish its shape on account of the ripples on the water, yet they know it is the leech. Some say there is an underground waterway across to Nottely river, not far above the mouth, where the river bends over toward Murphy, and sometimes the leech goes over there and makes the water boil as it used to at the rock ledge. ”

“ Now the name is familiar to everybody, because, in the first place it pertains to a monstrous leech which inhabits tropical waters; fastens on to whatever has sentient life, and never lets go until the last drop of blood is sucked out, and the victim topples into the arms of death. ”