No. 4. 



Insects injurious to Domestic Animals. 



115 



seems scarcely possible they sliould not oc 

 casion deatli. The hot may not be guilty of 

 all the mischief charged upon it, but enough 

 will remain to justify us in considering it 

 the most formidable insect enemy of the 

 liorse. Little can be said in favour of any 

 of the thousand remedies prescribed for 

 the bot, as skilfully conducted e^-periments 

 have shov,-n that no agent sufficiently pow- 

 erful to kill the bot can be brought to act 

 upon them, that would not be equally fatal 

 to the horse. Prevention, in this case, is 

 better than cure. If, while the season of 

 the bot-fly lasts, the legs be wiped down 

 carefully once a day, with a clotii moistened 

 in warm water, or where this is not conve- 

 nient, if the eggs are scraped from the hair 

 with a sharp knife as often as they are de- 

 posited, there will be little danger of enough 

 getting into the stomach to produce injury. 

 There are two other kinds of worms that 

 are sometimes injurious to the horse. One 

 of these is the long round worm, Lv.mhricus 

 teres, found in the stomach and small intes- 

 tines. A smart dose of physic will usually 

 expel these; but Youatt recommends, as not 

 interfering with the feeding or work of the 

 horse, emetic tartar with ginger, made into 

 a ball with linseed oil and molasses, and 

 given every morning half an hour before 

 the horse is fed. The other worm is the 

 needle-worm or Ascaris — small, and found 

 principally in the rectum or large intestines. 

 They are discovered by the irritation they 

 cause about the anus, and in that case an 

 injection of oil will generally prove an ef- 

 fectual remedy. 



The sheep has several insect enemies, 

 that at times cause great losses of this val- 

 uable part of the farmer^s domestic stock. 

 Of these, one of the worst is the sheep-bot, 

 CEslrus ovis. During the summer months, 

 flocks of sheep may be observed in a state 

 of great agitation, their noses close to the 

 ground, stamping violently occasionally, and 

 seeming to listen as if for some enemy. The 

 cause of this disturbance is the presence of 

 the fly of this worm, one of which is suffi 

 cient to alarm a whole flock. The fly is 

 smaller than the horse bot-fly — of an ash 

 grey appearance, owing to white spots on a 

 dark ground, and glistening wings. It 

 makes its attack on the nostril of the sheep, 

 in the mucous covering of which it deposits 

 an egg, the young larva from whicji crawls 

 up the nostril and makes its way into some 

 of the sinuses of the upper part of the nose. 

 Here it remains till the next year, when it 

 quits its hold, descends to the nostril, and is 

 usually expelled by sneezing. It penetrates 

 the earth in which it passes the pupa state, 

 and emerges a perfect insect in June or 



July. The irritation the worm occasions as 

 it works its way up the nose, is maddening 

 to the animal : the inflammation caused, 

 sometimes extends to the brain, and the 

 animal dies in convulsions. Unless more 

 than one is present, the sheep is not in much 

 danger after the irritation is over; but where 

 a number of them are found, they are very 

 injurious in all their stages. Many reme- 

 dies have been prescribed for this worm in 

 the head of sheep, but unfortunately, as in 

 the case of the horse-bot, with little success. 

 Injections of soap-suds, or of animal oils 

 mixed with water, or of spirits of turpen- 

 tine reduced with water, have sometimes 

 been successful, when the larva was acces- 

 sible; as have fumigations of burned leather 

 or horn, causing the animal to sneeze vio- 

 lenty. In some extreme cases, or where 

 the animal was of great value, trepanning 

 has been resorted to with success; but un- 

 less done skilfully, the remedy would be 

 more fatal than the insect. As preventives, 

 we have found troughs to which the sheep 

 could have access at all times, the bottoms 

 to be smeared with tar over which salt was 

 to be strewn, to be one of the readiest and 

 best; but on no account should an occasional 

 tarring of the nose be omitted during the 

 summer months, on those farms on which 

 the fly is found. Furrows should occasion- 

 ally be opened in sheep pastures, as instinct 

 teaches the animal, when attacked, to fly to 

 these or some other place where dry earth 

 or dust can be found, as his best security 

 against this enemy. 



Another enemy of the slieep, which ope- 

 rates most injuriously to the health of the 

 animal, and on its wool, is the well-known 

 sheep tick, Hippobosca ovina. This animal 

 lays only one egg, which is the nymph or 

 pupa; is first white, and then brown, and 

 fastened to the wool of the sheep. The 

 sheep tick is found most commonly on 

 poorly fed sheep in the spring; and all that 

 are not taken off in the wool at shearing, 

 seek refuge on the lambs, and bite and irri- 

 tate them at pleasure. Our remedy for the 

 tick, has been, at the time of washing, to 

 rub a handful of soap on the animal before 

 putting it in the vat ; and as, in the process 

 of washing one or two hundred, the water 

 will become a strong suds, dipping the 

 lambs in it will free the whole flock. In 

 England, a common wash " is a pound of 

 arsenic, boiled with a pound of soft soap and 

 a pound of purified potash, in four gallons 

 of water. When the arsenic is dissolved, 

 the solution is thrown into a dipping tub, 

 and forty gallons of water added, into which 

 the sheep are plunged ; care being taken to 

 allow none of the fluid to enter the mouth 



