HOUSE BOT FLY. 
69 
enquiries are the amount of injury supposed to be shown by the state 
of the membrane from which the maggots have been removed, and 
also the idea that a great hole or perforation has been caused by the 
maggot attack. As these points are not what I could give an accurate 
opinion on, I have never offered any observations on them to corres¬ 
pondents beyond recommending application for proper veterinary 
advice, but during the past season the following observations given on 
these points, by Mr. D. Hutcheon, C.Y.S., Government Veterinary 
Surgeon, Cape Colony, reply so clearly and precisely to these enquiries 
that I give them (duly acknowledged), followed by the observations 
with which I have been favoured by Mr. Hy. Thompson, M.R.C.V.S., 
of Aspatria. 
The following observations are from the * Agricultural Journal,’ 
published by the Department of Agriculture of Cape Colony, No. 84, 
pp. 278, 279. 
The situation of the Bots in the Horse's stomach .—“ A great deal of 
misunderstanding, with reference to the injury which the Bots inflict 
upon a Horse’s stomach, arises from the fact that few non-professional 
men are acquainted with the normal appearance which it presents. 
When a Horse’s stomach is opened, one is at once struck by the 
different appearances presented by its internal membrane according 
as it is examined to the right or left. To the left, where the gullet 
enters, the lining membrane has a pale white appearance, and is firm 
and resisting to the touch. This white and resisting lining terminates 
in the centre of the stomach by a distinct wavy ridge. Beyond this 
ridge on the right side, which terminates in the opening to the 
intestines, the lining membrane is of a purplish or reddish brown 
colour, very vascular and appearing inflamed when compared with the 
white lining membrane of the left side. It is this division of the 
mucous membrane lining of the stomach of the Horse into two dis¬ 
tinct portions which have led amateur anatomists astray. 
“ I have observed this peculiarity at every post-mortem examination 
of a Horse which I have made in the Colony. 
“ On cutting open a stomach, emptying and cleaning it, so as to 
exhibit its general appearance and the position which the Bots occupy, 
it is very rare that some one amongst the by-standers does not call out, 
‘ There you are ! Don’t you see the Bots have eaten off half of the 
lining of the stomach! ’ They observe the Bots sticking in a close 
cluster on the white membrane which lines the left or gullet-end of the 
stomach, and on comparing this part of the stomach to the other end, 
which terminates in the intestines and has a reddish raw appearance, 
exactly as if the white lining had been torn off from it, the conclusion 
arrived at—and a very natural one too—is that the Bots have already 
eaten off the white lining on the right end of the stomach, and are 
