THE ZOOLOGIST 



FOR 1847 



a. The larva of CEstrus Cervi. b. Anterior extremity of the same, showing the hooks, 

 anterior extremity having heen separated. 



The pupa, the 



Note on the Bot infesting the Stag. — • After considerable delay, from various unfor- 

 seen causes, I am enabled to present thy subscribers with a view of the larva and pupa of 

 the bot of the deer, objects hitherto quite unknown, I believe, to naturalists. Reaumur 

 has indeed given a representation of the larva of this species, but it is evident, from 

 the very elongated figure he has given of it, that it must have been dead some time, 

 and obtained this lengthened figure from putrefaction. This larva, several of which I 

 have had alive, so much resembles that of the (Estrus of the sheep, that they might be 

 taken on a careless inspection for one another, that of the deer is, however, somewhat 

 proportionally longer and less angular. All efforts to preserve them out of their lo- 

 cality in the throat of the stag seem hopeless ; I have had many from the New Forest 

 by the kindness of the Superintendant there, and though kept on membranes and fed 

 with milk in a warm place, they uniformly died within forty-eight hours. The present 

 specimen was so far advanced in its growth that it assumed the chrysalis state, but died 

 in that state and never came out. Though positive proof still fail us, I am brought to 

 the firmest conviction that the stag bot is no other than the CEstrus pictus, found by 



