ewww

Nothing seems too odd or disagreeable to be regarded with affection. Lord Erskine, who always expressed  a great interest in animals, had at one time two leeches (emphasis mine and yuck! - Curator) for favourites. Taken dangerously ill at Portsmouth, he fancied that they had saved his life.  Every day he gave them fresh water and formed a friendship with them. He said he was sure that both knew  him, and were grateful for his attentions. He named them Home and Cline, for two celebrated surgeons, and he affirmed that their dispositions were quite different; in fact, he thought he distinguished individuality in these
black squirmers from the mire.

 

--from Kate Sanborn, My Literary Zoo  (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1896) pp. 111-2.