I write from Australia and I don't know to what extent our leeches may
differ from those under discussion. but for what it's worth ...
I grew up on a farm adjacent to subtropical rainforest. Leeches were
plentiful and considered only a minor embuggerance. Their clot-preventing
saliva meant you might bleed for a while, but so what? The very minor
blood-loss was no big deal.
But late in life I made the acquaintance of a bloke who found blood in the
boots sufficiently off-putting to want to do something about it. His
solution was to sew a pair of thick socks onto the bottom of thick
flannelette pyjamas - both sufficiently thick that a leech couldn't get at
his skin through them. (I didn't inquire whether any looped their way up t=
o
the top of his pyjamas. Which is where our scrub ticks would certainly go.=
)
As far a I know our leeches don't drop on you from above - just wait on the
shrubbery and fasten on as you brush past. So for a small party in single
file, the leader alerts the leech which then gets someone further back ion
the line.
I once took an overseas visitor to a local rainforest national park.
Apparently where he came from they didn't have terrestrial leeches; only
aquatic ones. Back in town we're in a hotel lounge having a quiet beer, an=
d
he happens to look down at his ankle: a fully engorged leech.
"What's that?" he says.
"It's a leech," I reply.
"The filthy thing!" he says, and before I can stop him, he drops it on the
hotel's nice clean terrazzo floor and stamps on it. Blood explodes for hal=
f
a metre or so all round. Spectacular, it was.
Cheers
Syd
|