2o6 ACTIONS AT LAW. 



stomach. In his opinion, that was the primary cause of 

 death. The presence of bots would exhibit itself in the 

 living animal by its having a rough, hollow coat, and a 

 precarious appetite. Bots generally get into the stomach 

 of a horse in the spring of the year when out at grass, and 

 take some time to develop themselves. As a rule, they are 

 carried away in the dung, but in the case of an animal in 

 bad health, whose stomach has been much injured by their 

 presence, they remain, and, in some instances, destroy 

 the coat of the stomach, which becomes indented by their 

 constant pressure. Looking to the state of the mare when 

 he made his examination, he should say she must have been 

 in an unsound condition when sold to the plaintiff from 

 the presence of the enormous number of bots in the 

 stomach. 



Cross-examined : The bots he found in the stomach he 

 did not remove ; they remained to be seen by the gentle- 

 man employed by the defendant. They were found in the 

 more insensible part of the stomach, and a few in the 

 smaller intestines. The bot which is found in the stomach 

 and that sometimes formd in the anus, are of different 

 classes. The inflammation of the bowels, which he 

 observed, was the proximate cause of the death of 

 the mare, and that might have arisen from a chill, pro- 

 duced by standing some time in the cold after being 

 driven hard, or having a pail of cold water given 

 when she was heated. The presence of bots prevented 

 digestion, just as the teeth of a human being covered with 

 velvet would prevent his eating. In the time of his grand- 

 father there was a notion prevalent that they assisted 

 rather than impeded digestion, but that was now ex- 

 ploded. He never knew of an instance in which bots had 

 been described as unsoundness. Bots are more commonly 

 met with in horses turned out in low, fenny countries than 

 on hill-side pastures. The food passing into the 



