BOTS. 501 
must change their pasture, or they soon lose condition ; and yet horses 
are expected to go on eating oats and hay for years together without in- 
jury to health ; and at the same time they are often exposed to the close 
air of 9 confined stable, and to an irregular amount of exercise. We can- 
not, therefore, wonder that the master is often told that some one or other 
of his horses is “a little off his feed ;” nor should we be surprised that 
the constant repetition of the panacea for this, ‘‘a dose of physic,” should 
at length permanently establish the condition which at first it would 
always alleviate. It is a source of wonder that the appetite continues so 
good as it does, in the majority of horses, which are kept in the stable on 
the same kind of food, always from July to May, and often through th 
other months also. The use of a few small bundles of vetches, lucerne, or 
clover in the spring, is supposed to be quite sufficient to restore tone to the 
stomach, and undoubtedly they are better than no change at all; but at 
other seasons of the year something may be done towards the prevention 
of dyspepsia, by varying the quality of the hay, and by the use of a few 
carrots once or twice a week. In many stables, one rick of hay is made to 
serve throughout the whole or a great part of the year, which is a very bad 
plan, as a change in this important article of food is as much required as a 
change of pasture when the animal is at grass. When attention is paid to 
this circumstance, the appetite will seldom fail in horses of a good constitu- 
tion, if they are regularly worked ; but without it, resort must occasionally 
be had to a dose of physic. It is from a neglect of this precaution that so 
many horses take to eat their litter, in preference to their hay ; for if the 
same animal was placed in a straw-yard for a month, without hay, and 
then allowed access to both, there would be little doubt that he would 
prefer the latter. Some horses are naturally so voracious, that they are 
always obliged to be supplied with less than they desire, and they seldom 
suffer from loss of appetite ; but delicate feeders require the greatest care 
in their management. When the stomach suffers in this way, it is always 
desirable to try what a complete change of food will do before resorting to 
medicine ; and, if it can be obtained, green food of some kind should be 
chosen, or if not, carrots, or even steamed potatoes. In place of hay, sound 
wheat or barley straw may be cut into chaff, and mixed with the carrots 
and corn; and to this a little malt-dust may be added, once or twice 
a week, so as to alter the flavour. By continually changing the food in 
this way, the most dyspeptic stomach may often be restored to its proper 
tone, without doing harm with one hand while the other is doing good, as 
is too often the case with medicine. The use of the fashionable “ horse- 
feeds” of the present day will serve the same purpose ; and if the slight 
changes I have mentioned do not answer, Thorley’s or Henri’s food may 
be tried with great probability of success, 
BOTS. 
THE LaRVaH of the estrus equi, a species of gadfly, are often found in 
large numbers, attached by a pair of hooks with which they are provided, 
to the cardiac extremity of the stomach ; they are very rarely met with in 
the true digestive portion of this organ, but sometimes in the duodenum or 
jejunum in small numbers. A group of these larve, which are popularly 
called bots, are represented on the next page, but sometimes nearly all the 
cardiac extremity of the stomach is occupied with them, the interstices 
being occupied by little projections which are caused by those that have 
let go their hold, and have been expelled with the food. Several of these 
