"If your blood is in a bad condition, their bites are apt to cause sores which are difficult to heal. In the last war the English had with the natives, the leeches caused more deaths than the snakes, and a great many of the sepoys and coolies employed here died from their bites. We have been bitten by a few of them, and don't want any more experience of the kind. It is a good plan to carry a lemon in your pocket, and when one of these leeches fastens to you, a few drops of lemon-juice will make him let go. The natives smear their bodies with cocoa-nut oil, which prevents the leeches taking hold, and this is perhaps the reason why so much oil is used in Ceylon.
"They have water-leeches in great number, which frequently cause the deaths of cattle. They enter the nostrils of the poor brutes when the latter go to drink, and after gorging themselves they fall off and leave the wound to bleed. Very often it does so till the blood, accumulating in the throat, suffocates the animal.
"While on this subject, we may as well say that Ceylon is reputed to contain more than 10,000 kinds of insects, besides several parts of the island to hear from. The list of all these varieties might possibly be a little tedious, and so we won't try to give it, but will briefly say they include pretty nearly everything you can think of in the insect line. In the morning, and also in the evening, the hum of the wings of those that can fly is like the noise of machinery in a mill; at noon they are comparatively still, as the heat seems to shut them up. The most of them disappear at the end of the monsoons, but they come up again ready for business in a month or two.
"The white ant, as already mentioned, is one of the most destructive of these pests, since he will eat nearly all kinds of wood, and there are persons who say he is fond of knife-blades, needles, and similar things, and can even get away with a cannon-ball. Closets, where meat and other things for the table are kept, must have the feet stand in saucers filled with water, or they will be over-run by these ants; and in some parts of the island it is the practice to fix the beds in the same way, to prevent the disturbance of the occupants.
SCORPION.
CENTIPEDE.