STOMACH BOTS. 203 



tensively on his estates in the Tuscan Mareinme south of the 

 city of Volterra, the lands sloping to the Mediterranean Sea. 

 In autumn the three-year-old colts were housed in a large 

 stable, standing separated from each other by bales. They 

 were roughly groomed, chiefly fed on coarse hay, and were 

 ridden and exercised, being slowly broken in. In this way 

 they passed the winter, and their condition did not at all 

 improve apparently. Large quantities of hay constantly kept 

 before them, were eaten by these colts. It was from these 

 that in the summer I made a selection, and they were poor, 

 with thin crest and drooping abdomen, so that in mounting 

 them the saddle slipped on to their shoulders. They voided 

 large quantities of faeces with the coarse undigested hay, but 

 their skins had a healthy appearance. 



" After two days' walking journey to Florence, they were 

 placed on good and well-regulated keep ; and they invariably 

 thrived so rapidly, that within two months they were in 

 beautiful condition as riding-horses. Having been in the 

 stable the preceding winter, spring, and summer, before sale, 

 they lost the bots just before I obtained them; and, though 

 at the time the question of bots in no way influenced me, it- 

 was after-experience which carried my mind to the epoch 

 above alluded to. Accordingly, I afterwards purchased 

 young horses from the same stock, but which had not been 

 taken up into the stable, and I had a larger choice, they 

 seemed in better condition, and more muscular than their 

 companions confined in the stable. To my disappointment 

 and loss, the result was totally different from that expected. 

 Of the first three thus bought, one was own brother to one I 

 had had before, and another was a six-year-old horse well 

 broken to ride, and had been- constantly used by Count 

 Gherardesca's factor, though he was taken up from the field 

 to be ridden, and then let loose again. He was in fine health 



