BOTS IN HORSES 



201 



when hatched into grubs, produce the tumours so 

 well known among the country people by the name of 

 " wurbles." One of the species devoted to the horse 

 {Gasterophilus equi) , lays its eggs, not indiscriminately 



Gasterophilus Equi. 



over the body, but about the parts which are most 

 liable to be licked by the tongue of the animal. They 

 are thus taken into the stomach, and transformed into 

 lar\'3e, in this country universally termed " bots." As 

 the connexion of these creatures with a two-^^'inged 

 fly was in former times unknown, it is no wonder that 

 their origin was attributed to other causes. Hence, 

 Mr. Clarke, in the able Memoir already quoted, re- 

 marks, — " Our ancestors imagined that poverty, or 

 improper food, engendered these animals, or that 

 they were the offspring of putrefaction. In Shak- 

 speare's " Henry the Fourth," Part I., the ostler at 

 Rochester says, " Pease and beans are as dank here 

 as a dog ; and that is the way to give i^oor jades the 

 bots;" and one of the misfortunes of the miserable 



