270 STABLE ECONOMY. 



the brain and the eyes. Staggers, that is, an affection of the 

 brain, is not common, and the eyes nevef suffer permanent 

 mischief. They are inflamed by the flies, but the brain is in- 

 jured, partly by the heat, and partly by the pendent position 

 of the head, aided perhaps by plethora. 



The Flies. — The horse is persecuted by at least three 

 kinds of flies. One, the common house-fly, settles on his 

 ears and different parts of his body, tickling and teasing him. 

 Another is a larger lly, termed the gad or cleg ; it is a blood- 

 sucker, bites pretty smartly, and irritates some tender-skinned 

 horses almost to madness. They gallop about the field in 

 every direction, stamp their feet, tear up the gronnd, and of- 

 ten kick as if something were behind them. Sometimes they 

 rush into the water to escape the attacks of these formidable 

 insects. It is this fly, I suppose that produces the bol-worm, 

 so often found in the stomach of a horse that has been at 

 grass. [The bot-fly never bites the horse. He irritates him 

 merely. The gad-fly, which so much annoys the horse, is a 

 different one from the bot-fly.] The female deposites her eggs 

 on the hair about the shoulder, neck, and knees ; a glutinous 

 matter in which they are enveloped fastens them to the hair. 

 When the horse or his companion licks these places, he swal- 

 lows some of the eggs, which are hatched in the stomach. 

 The worms are each furnished with tw^o little hooks, by which 

 they adhere to the surface of the stomach till spring arrives, 

 when they are evacuated, and soon become flies like the 

 parent. 



There is a third kind of fly, which annoys the pastured 

 horse a good deal. I do not know its name. It is a small 

 insect, and lives on blood. It attacks those parts where the 

 skin is thinnest ; the eyelids, inside and outside, the sheath, 

 and the vagina, are often much bitten by it. The eyelids es- 

 pecially always swell where this fly abounds, and the swel- 

 ling is sometimes so great as to make the horse nearly blind. 

 The eye is red and weeping. Some suffer much more than 

 others. I have never seen any permanently injured. 



The principal defence the horse has against these puny, 

 but tormenting enemies, is his tail. On some parts of the 

 body the horse can remove them with his teeth, and his feet; 

 and that which the feet and the teeth can not do is done by 

 the tail. But in this country, so eminently the seat of free- 

 dom and wisdom, the effective instrument with which nature 

 furnishes him is almost invariably removed before the horse 

 has attained maturity ; as if the pains of servitude were not 



