The localities for Trochetia named by Moquin Tandon are Chateau-Renaud (Indre et Loire), the neighbourhood of Toulouse, near St, Girons (Ariège), near Lanquais (Dordogne), and the environs of Algiers.
To these may now be added certain localities in England. In 1850 Mr. Hoffman found, in the neighbourhood of the Regent's Park, a large Leech, which the late Dr. Gray identified with the present species, and described as being new to the British fauna.[1] A few years later—namely, in July, 1865—Dr. Murie, while engaged on a post mortem examination of a Moluccan deer, which had died in the Gardens of the Zoological Society, found amongst the viscera a Leech of such dimensions as to excite the astonishment of those present. Unfortunately the viscera were somewhat disturbed and confused when the Leech was first observed, so that it was difficult to say whether it was attached to the stomach, to the intestines, or to the organs of the chest. It was at first supposed to be an unusually large Horse Leech, Hæmopis sanguisuga, which might have been accidentally swallowed by the deer while drinking; but upon further examination Dr. Murie came to the conclusion that it was Trochetia subviridis. In a communication on the subject which he subsequently made to the Zoological Society,[2] he expressed some doubt as to its being indigenous to the British Islands, and inclined to the belief that the specimen obtained might have been accidentally imported to this country by the medium of some large animal.
A few years later, when the acquisition of fresh specimens from a new locality gave rise to a renewed discussion on the subject in the Natural-History columns of Land and Water,' Mr. Henry Lee, who took a lively interest in the matter, and to whom naturalists are indebted for eliciting the facts in connection with the rediscovery of this Leech in England, published a letter[3] which he had received from the late Dr. Baird, of the British Museum, a well-known authority on Annelides, in which the following passage occurs:—"The specimen sent some few years ago by Mr. Bartlett from the Zoological Gardens is a true Trochetia;[4] but the one
- ↑ 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' 1850, p. 52. This specimen is preserved in the British Museum, and is referred to in the 'Catalogue of Non-parasitical Worms,' 1865, p. 45, where it is slated to have been seven inches in length when fresh, and six inches after having been preserved in spirits.
- ↑ Proc. Zool. Soc, 1865, p. 659.
- ↑ 'Land and Water,' 13th March, 1869.
- ↑ That is, Mr. Hoffman's specimen.
