314 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



of July and August, and becomes imbedded in the earth, 

 where the chrysalis is formed, whence, in time, is hatched the 

 fly. The eggs of the fly are deposited upon the horse's skin, 

 are bitten off, and find their way into the horse's stomach. 

 Here the worm is developed in turn, and thus the species 

 continues to be propagated. Unlike the hot, the grub never 

 attaches itself to the coating of the stomach, but lives among 

 the particles of food, the tough, fibrous portions of which it 

 decomposes, and, in both the stomach and bowels, undoubt- 

 edly performs the same ofiice for the horse that worms 

 do in the child. When multiplied in great numbers, the 

 grub may occasion much uneasiness and irritation, but never 

 causes death, or even serious disease. 



Although the stomach is often found " completely riddled 

 by the hot," as the popular expression is, there is good reason 

 to believe that the work is done entirely after the horse is 

 " struck by death." One or two facts will go far to prove 

 the truth of a proposition which to many will appear so ex- 

 traordinary. 



The cuticular coating of the stomach, to which the hot 

 fastens himself by means of two little bearded hooks, is 

 nearly, if not wholly, insensible, having no more feeling, 

 apparently, than the animal's hoofs. When the horse is in 

 health, it is hard, rigid, impenetrable, and the hot, if ever so 

 much disposed to do so, would attack it in vain ; but when 

 death seizes him, this coating becomes relaxed and soft, and 

 begins rapidly to decompose. Then only it is that the hot 

 can, or ever does, work his way through it. Another fact, 

 still more strongly corroborative of the above proposition, is 

 this : that of any number of horses killed while in perfect 

 health, and opened an hour or two afterward, there will be 

 found not of^e whose stomach is not "riddled by the hot." 

 Dissection has revealed the existence of this condition in 

 hundreds of instances of sudden death from accident. 



Dr. John Franklin, of Sumner County, Tenn., relates the 

 case of a horse instantly killed by the falling of a large 

 timber, whose carcass he opened within a few hours after 



