15 
(though sometimes opaque) and white, with a smoky or brownish 
cross-band, and also two spots or a single marking at the tip. The 
legs yellowish brown. 
The male (fig. 1, at heading) fly is rounded at the end of the 
abdomen, commonly called the tail; the female is more prolonged 
to a bluntly pointed shape ; but when at rest this part, which 
includes the ovipositor, or egg-laying apparatus, is curved down 
under the body (fig. 2). 
When the fly is about to lay she hovers for a moment or so 
near the horse, then, darting down, leaves an egg fixed by a kind 
of gummy matter to the hair she has selected, and 
so she goes on until her stock of eggs is exhausted. 
The eggs are yellowish white, about the twelfth of 
an inch in length, spindle-shaped at one end, and 
truncate at the other. They are fixed to the hair 
by the narrow end, the truncate end being un¬ 
attached and pendent, and several eggs may be 
placed on one hair, and it is stated several hun¬ 
dreds may be found on one horse. 
The hair of the mane, or shoulders, also of the 
knees and shanks, are parts especially chosen for 
egg-laying, so that commonly the horse on which 
they are laid can reach them with its tongue ; but, 
if not, the nibbling or licking of one horse by 
another, which may often be seen going on in the 
field, answers every purpose needed tor maggot Aft g r Bracy Clark, 
transportation. 
There appears to be some difference in opinion, as expressed by 
various writers, as to the condition in which the infestation is 
carried into the mouth. It may be that the egg itself is carried in 
on the tongue, but one of the more recent views is that the warm 
moisture of the horse’s tongue hatches the eggs, or rather frees the 
maggots from the eggs if liatchiug time is near. Another view is 
that the maggot on hatching crawls on the skin, and thus causes 
a slight itching, which induces the horse to lick the skin, and thus 
in either case the maggots may be conveyed into the mouth. From 
thence (although it is possible some of them may stay by the way) 
most of them pass downwards, or are conveyed downwards, with 
the food into the stomach, where they fix themselves to the white 
membrane which lines (what may for common purposes be called) 
the “gullet end” of the stomach. In general, “they fix themselves 
on the gastric mucous membrane and almost exclusively in the 
Eggs of G. equi, 
