194 A HUNTING CATECHISM 



removing them is to rmi a lighted taper over 

 them, but this method cannot be continually 

 repeated, and the animals should be methodically 

 examined morning and evening, and every egg 

 removed. It is a troublesome job, but an effectual 

 one. The eggs can be pretty quickly removed 

 by the aid of a sharp pen-knife. 



After being swallowed the egg turns into a kind 

 of grub, which takes up its abode in the stomach, 

 and buries its head in the coat, where it fixes itself 

 by the aid of two booklets. It remains there till 

 full-grown, occasionally perforating the stomach 

 and thereby killing the horse ; but except for 

 this bots are not dangerous to life, though the 

 horse frequently becomes emaciated in the spring, 

 from the effects of their presence. When full 

 grown they are about the size of a blackberry, and 

 pass naturally away during the months of June 

 and July, when they burrow in the ground until 

 it is time for them to become flies ; then they lay 

 their eggs, and their cycle is complete. The 

 writer once noted eighty-four pass from a horse 

 he bought at auction in the autumn, and whose 

 condition rapidly fell off in the following spring, 

 in a manner quite unaccountable until the pre- 

 sence of these parasites was revealed, after which 

 the horse rapidly regained his health, and never 

 looked back again. It is often the presence of 

 bots internally that causes two-year-old race- 

 horses to lose their form as the summer pro- 

 gresses, after showing great promise when first 

 tried in the winter months. 



Q. How is it that the parent fly is able to lay 

 its eggs without alarming the animal during 

 the process ? 



