30 NATURAL HISTORY. 



The posterior orifice-like cavity is considered a respiratory sac, 

 but what the black material in it is lam not prepared to state. Why 

 does the camel parasite have stalked eyes and the horse parasite 

 stalkless ones ? Why has the latter only the chitinous organ between 

 the hooks ? And why should the lips of the orifice of the camel 

 parasite develope into artistically." arranged lobes while those of the 

 horse bot are severely devoid of ornaments? All these and many 

 other problems suggest themselves in the study of these peculiar 

 creatures. 



The continuous irritation produced in the nostrils and pharyngesof 

 our poor camels exiled to the shores of the Red Sea, the probability 

 that a certain amount of their now historic exhaustion depended on 

 these bots, and the certainty that in future Campaigns where camel 

 transport is used these parasites must be remembered and got rid of, 

 give the CEstrus Cameli a considerable practical veterinary 

 interest. 



PARASITES IN THE WILD ASS OF CUTCH. 



By V. S. John Henry Steel, A.V.D. 



Superintendent, Bombay Veterinary College. 



Through the kindness of Messrs. Sterndale and Phipson I was, 

 in July of the present year, placed in possession of the carcase of a 

 young wild ass from Cutch. The animal had been strangled in 

 attempts to ship it for England. - The skin was handed over to the 

 Society for preservation, the hoofs and skeleton have been retained 

 by me, and I examined the carcase carefully for parasites. This was 

 all that could be done under the circumstances, our dissecting room 

 being then not ready for use and our_operations in post-mortem 

 examination conducted under a downpour of rain, in the open. The 

 investigation showed beautiful development of the muscles (and 

 especially their tendinous portions) of the limbs, and the lesions of 

 strangling were well marked. As concerns parasites I wished 

 especially to make careful examination because I had recently 

 opposed the popular view that these beings do not occur in wild 

 animals to such a degree as in domesticated, and that in the latter 

 they must be considered pathological rather than in their natural 

 habitat. I thought if horses standing in the open have more 

 parasites than those more carefully tended, surely animals in the 



