The Horse at Pasture 305 



nig-ht and in the early morning and late evening. 

 Horses cannot eat well and gain flesh as they should 

 if obliged to fight swarms of flies and mosquitoes 

 all the time, while any scratches or abrasions to the 

 skin are immediately' fastened upon by the insects 

 for feeding and for egg-laying locations, to the 

 ensuing risk of festering sores, painful wounds, and 

 permanent scars. Horses cursed with the thin skin 

 and nervous irritability of the well-bred animal will 

 grow frantic from these annoyances, and will race 

 and gallop about so much in their desperation that 

 the " soft '" flesh, such as grass builds up, not only 

 itself melts away, but, as all the tissues are interlaid 

 and overlaid with it, they also waste away until 

 finally the poor beast is nothing but a hidebound 

 skeleton, and reduced to a condition of physical dis- 

 ability from which it will take him months to 

 recuperate. 



As the season advances and drought prevails, the 

 grasses grow hard, wiry, and innutritions, and, as 

 the horse is a dainty feeder, he will not touch any 

 portion which has been defiled by the breath of other 



