90 



NAVIN ON THE HORSE. 



a Represents the egg of the bot on a hair. 



6 The eggs ripe or ready to have the grub crawl out. 



c c A patch of the stomach with a half-grown bot sticking on. The dots are the places 

 where matured bots let loose. 



d A full-grown bot ready to pass through the stomach and bowels naturally and be- 

 come a gad-fly. 



e A gad-fly, the ancestor or mother of the bot. 



and in about ten to eleven months will have attained its full 

 size, which is about three-quarters of an inch in length, and 

 little more than a quarter of an inch thick. The bot has a 

 pointed head, armed with two hooks, by means of which it 

 attaches itself so firmly that its body will be almost torn in 

 two before they will let go. Between these two hooks is its 

 mouth, or sucker. Its body is marked by rings running 

 around it. 



Bots will be found during the latter part of the fall, winter, 

 and spring, in the stomach of almost every horse that was on 

 grass or worked in the field during the fall. The number 

 found in the stomach of each will vary from half a dozen, or 

 less, to as high as a hundred. 



The origin and history of the bot has been carefully studied, 

 and some facts arrived at which are of much imj^ortance to 

 the owner of the horse. Truth is what every one ought to be 

 anxious to find out; and no matter what may have been one's 

 opinion, he ought not to let that oj^inion stand in the way of 

 his believing the truth when it is clearly presented. There is 

 more error among people generally about bots than any thing 

 else relating to the diseases of the horse. For this reason I 



