DICTIONARY OF THE VETERINARY ART. 205 



with honey, it is a useful application for sore mouth and 

 lampas. 



Botts. Short reddish worms which are often found 

 attached to the horse's stomach. Mr. Clark says, " that botts 

 are not, properly speaking, worms, but the larvae of the gad- 

 fly, which deposits its eggs on the horse's coat in such a man- 

 ner as that they shall be received into his stomach, and then 

 become botts. When the female fly has become impregnated, 

 and the eggs are sufficiently matured, she seeks among the 

 horses a subject for her purpose, and approaching it on the 

 wing, she holds her body nearly upright in the air, and her 

 tail, which is lengthened for the purpose, carried inwards and 

 upwards. In this way she approaches the part where she 

 designs to deposit the eggs, and suspending herself for a few 

 seconds before it, suddenly darts upon it, and leaves the egg 

 adhering to the hair by means of a glutinous liquor secreted 

 with it. She then leaves the horse at a small distance, and 

 prepares the second egg ; and poising herself before the part, 

 deposits it in the same way ; the liquor dries, and the egg be- 

 comes firmly glued to the hair. This is repeated by various 

 flies, till four or five hundred eggs are sometimes deposited on 

 one horse. They are usually deposited on the legs, side, and 

 back of the shoulder — those parts most exposed to be licked 

 by the animal : in licking, the eggs adhere to the tongue, and 

 are carried into the horse's stomach in the act of swallowing. 

 The botts attach themselves to the horse's stomach, and are 

 sometimes, though less frequently, found in the first intestine. 

 The number varies considerably ; sometimes there are not half 

 a dozen, at others they exceed a Imndred. They are fixed 

 by the small end to the inner coat of the stomach, to which 

 they attach themselves by means of two hooks. The slow- 

 ness of their growth, and the purity of their food, which is 

 supposed to be the chyle, must occasion what they receive in 

 a given time to be proportionably small ; from which, perhaps, 

 arises the extreme difficulty of destroying them by any medi- 

 cine or poison thrown into the stomach." A large amount of 

 opium, tobacco, and corrosive sublimate, sufficient to destroy 



