ANIMAL PARASITES AND DISEASES. 63 



sticky matter which soon dries, at the same time the lateral extentions 

 close around the hair and almost meet together, thus very firmly 

 securing the egg to the hair. 



In spite of many statements to the contrary it is most unusual for 

 the eggs to be detached by the action of the horse's tongue. What 

 actually takes place is the operculum is brushed off and the larva 

 within is carried by the tongue to the horse's mouth. 



The empty eggs may be found weeks after, firmly attached to the 

 hairs on the shoulders, forelegs, mane, etc. 



The operculum is convex above and marked with a honeycomb 

 pattern (Fig. 32). I hope to give some further particulars in a later 

 paper respecting this. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH THE EGGS. 



The various statements respecting the hatching of the eggs are 

 very contradictory and in not a few cases inaccurate. 



Very briefly I wish to set forth the accounts given by different 

 observers. 



VerrilP states that " the eggs contain more or less perfectly 

 developed larvae when laid ; and when they are mature or have been 

 a few days attached to the hair, they burst open and allow the young 

 to escape almost instantaneously, when moistened. Thus when the 

 horse licks itself, or its companions, the moisture hatches the eggs, 

 and the young larvae are transferred to the mouth by the tongue or 

 lips. 



Froggatt 2 states " These eggs are generally deposited on the jaw, 

 shoulders, or flanks of the animal, from whence, through the animal 

 licking itself, they are conveyed to the lips and mouth, the warmth 

 dissolving the gluey secretion and hatching the enclosed maggot, thus 

 enabling it to crawl out into the throat." 



Neither of these statements are borne out by the observations 

 here recorded. 



Bracy Clark's account, 3 although given upwards of a hundred 

 years earlier, is much more correct. He writes : " The eggs thus 

 deposited I at first supposed were loosened from the hairs by the 

 moisture of the tongue, aided by its roughness, and were conveyed to 



i The External and Internal Parasites of Man and Domestic Animals. Hartford, Conn., 1870. 

 *O/>. cit., p. 3. 

 * Of>. cit. 



