HORSE— CARE AND MANAGEMENT. 



9* 



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 flavor. 

 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. 



HORSE, Bots.— The larvae of the cts- 

 trus equi, a species of gadfly, are often 

 found in large numbers, attached by a 

 pair of hooks with which they are pro- 

 vided, to the cardiac extremity of the 

 stomach ; they are very rarely met with 

 in the true digestive portion of this or- 

 gan, but sometimes in the duodenum or 

 jejunum in small numbers. A group of 

 these larva;, which are popularly called 

 bots, are truly represented below, but 

 sometimes nearly all the cardiac ex- 

 tremity 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 



fig. 25. 



GROUP OF BOTS ATTACHED TO THE 

 STOMACH. 



have been expelled with the food. Sev- 

 eral of these papillae are shown on the 

 engraving, which delineates also* the ap- 

 pearance of the bots themselves, so that 

 no one can fail to recognize them when 

 he sees them. This is important, for it 

 often happens that a meddlesome groom 



when he sees them expelled from or 

 hanging to the verge of the anus, as they 

 often do for a short time, thinks it neces- 

 sary to use strong medicine; whereas, in 

 the first place he does no good, for none 

 is known which will kill the larvae without, 

 danger to the horse; and in the second,, 

 if he will only have a little patience,, 

 every bot will come away in the natural 

 course of things; and until the horse is, 

 turned out to grass, during the season 

 when the oestrus deposits its eggs, he will 

 never have another in his stomach. 



The oestrus equi comes out from the 

 pupa state in the middle and latter part 

 of summer, varying according to the sea- 

 son, and the female soon finds the proper 

 nidus for her eggs in the hair of the near- 

 est horse turned out to grass. She man- 

 ages to glue them to the sides of the hair 

 so firmly that no ordinary friction will get 

 rid of them, and her instinct teaches her 

 to select those parts within reach of the 

 horse's tongue, such the hair of the fore 

 legs and sides. Here they remain until 

 the heat of the sun hatches them, when,, 

 being no larger in diameter than a small 

 pin, each larva is licked off and carried 

 down the gullet to the stomach, to the 

 thick epithelium, to which it soon attaches, 

 itself by its hooks. Here it remains until 

 the next spring, having attained the size 

 which is represented in the engraving 

 during the course of the first two months 

 of its life, and then it fulfills its allotted 

 career, by letting go and being carried 

 out with the dung. On reaching the 

 outer air it soon assumes the chrysalis 

 condition, and in three or four weeks 

 bursts its covering to become the perfect 

 insect. 



From this history it will be evident that 

 no preventive measures will keep off the 

 attacks of the fly when the horse is at 

 grass, and, indeed, in those districts where 

 they abound, they will deposit their ova 

 in the hair of the stabled horse if he is. 

 allowed to stand still for a few minutes. 

 The eggs are, however, easily recognized 

 in any horse but a chestnut, to which 

 color they closely assimilate, and as they 

 are never deposited in large numbers on 

 the stabled horse, they may readily be 

 removed by the groom. Unlike other 

 parasites, they seem to do little or no- 

 harm, on account of the insensible nature 

 of the part of the stomach to which they 



