346 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



him, his last resource is in the water, where the oestrus is 

 never observed to pursue him. These flies appear some- 

 times to hide themselves in the grass, and as the horse 

 stoops to graze they dart on the mouth or lips. 



The Tcenia, or tape -worm, infesting the horse is a long, 

 flat, jointed worm, every joint of which, when broken, will 

 form a new animal. It has been found from twenty to 

 fifty feet in length, and an inch in breadth. The colour is 

 dirty white. Its head, which is tuberculous, is placed at the 

 slenderest end of its body, and is said to be always directed 

 towards, and sometimes to be actually within, the pyloric 

 opening of the stomach. 



The Lumbricus is a round worm, found oftener in the 

 small intestines than in the stomach. The lumbricus is 

 often found in the dung of horses, nearly as thick as the 

 little finger, and from three to fifteen inches in length. 

 Gibson says : " I have seen them eighteen inches long, and 

 larger than a man's finger." The worm is largest round its 

 middle part, from which it tapers off to each end, where it is 

 pointed. They are more generally white than red. A 

 French veterinarian, Chabert, says he found fourteen 

 pounds of them in a horse's small intestines ; and balls 

 of them are often found in aged horses' small guts, compli- 

 cated with bots (if the animal has been at grass), clinging 

 to the vascular part of the stomach itself. They are always 

 sheathed in mucus. 



Ascarides. — Of these eighty species have been described ; 

 one, the small, needlelike, lively parasite which we find so 

 commonly tormenting the rectum of the horse, is the only 

 variety we are concerned with. It is thin as a stocking- 

 needle, inhabits the large guts, and is often found in the 

 blind pouch of the csecum. It is sharp at one end and 

 blunt at the other, seldom more than half an inch in length, 

 and of a dull white. It frisks, or coils eel fashion, when 

 immersed in fluid, and is often detected escaping from the 

 anus. 



The Strongi/lus is an allied worm to the ascaris, but is 

 distinguished by the power of eating through or perforating 

 important structures. It is slender, from two to four inches 

 in length, consisting of two distinct portions — a body, con- 

 stituting not quite one-half of its entire length, rather 

 smaller than a crow-quill, to which is appended a con- 

 tracted threadlike part, or tail, making up the remainder of 



