——__—-s 
BOTRYTIS. 
cies. All receive their chief wages in the form 
of a proper allowance of each kind of requisite 
provisions, fuel, and other necessaries of life ; and 
the several individuals receive separate amounts 
of money wages, proportioned to their real or 
reputed skill as ploughmen. The heartless 
bothy-system, as this mode of ploughman life is 
called, prevails somewhat extensively in some of 
the best farming districts of Scotland ; and is cer- 
tainly a most undesirable substitute for the good, 
old, cordial practice of treating unmarried plough- 
men as servant-members of the farmer’s family. 
BOTRYTIS. A genus of minute parasitic 
fungi, forming the type of a subdivision of fungi 
called Botrytidei, and belonging to the tribe 
Coniomycetes. The other genera of the sub- 
division are four in number, but they comprise 
only about sixteen known species, and appear to 
have been imperfectly observed. The genus 
botrytis comprises about twenty known British 
species, and nearly as many known foreign spe- 
cies; it possesses considerable interest, in con- 
nexion with the habits of several of its species; 
and it has borrowed an additional but fictitious 
interest from a mistaken identification of it with 
mildew. Its spores, when seen through the 
| microscope, appear to be clustered somewhat in 
the manner of grapes, and are alluded to in the 
name botrytis, which means a bunch of grapes. 
Two of the species, diffusa and nigra, are mi- 
nutely conspicuous ; but all the other species 
are strictly microscopic, or can be discriminated 
by the naked eye only as they are segregated in 
sheets or masses. The plants consist of little 
cells adhering end to end, one part lying pros- 
trate on the vegetable substance to which they 
are attached ; and another part rising erect, and 
bearing the spores on its extremity. B. diffusa 
grows on rotten herbaceous stems, has a white 
colour, and appears like broad tufts. B. effusa 
grows on the lower side of living leaves, has a 
purple-greyish colour, and appears like spots. ZB. 
|| negra grows on rotten trunks, has a black colour, 
and appears like dusty powder. JB. leucosperma 
grows on rotten pears, has a grey colour, and ap- 
pears like woolly tufts. . dateritia grows on 
hollow potatoes, has a brick-red colour, and ap- 
pears likeathin patch. JB. infestans has recently 
challenged attention, and acquired notoriety, 
from its prevalence on the potato crop. Most of 
the other species grow on decaying vegetables. 
BOTS, Borruies, or Gaprures,—scientifically 
Gistride. A tribe of dipterous insects, well known 
to farmers for the annoyance which several of 
their species give to sheep, oxen, and horses. The 
perfect insects are short-lived, and seldom seen; 
and the larvee spend most of their existence un- 
der the skin, within the stomach, or otherwise 
in the interior of ruminating animals. Yet the 
whole tribe, in all the stages of existence, is re- 
markable for extraordinary habits, nice mechani- 
cal adjustments, and a general character of won- 
ie instinct and beautiful organization. Two 
BOTS. 499 | 
genera particularly challenge the farmer’s notice, 
Gasterophilus and Gistrus ; and these differ from 
each other principally in the latter having trans- 
verse neryures towards the apex of the wings 
closing the cells, and in its wing-scales or wing- 
lets being so very large as to cover the whole of 
the halteres. The gasterophilus was constituted 
a separate genus by Dr. Leach; and it includes 
five British species, and possesses a bad pre-emi- 
nence for its constant and instinctive infesting | 
of the horse. The antenne are inserted in a 
cavity of the face; the eyes, in both sexes, are 
equally distant ; the mouth is either a-wanting, 
or consists of an indistinct linear opening, with- 
out the usual appendages; the alimentary canal 
has no opening at the anterior extremity; and 
the posterior margin of the wings has no trans- 
verse nervures. 
The great spotted horse-bot, Gasterophilus equ, 
is one of the largest and by far the most com- 
mon, not only of the genus, but of the tribe. Its 
length is about seven lines; its general colour is 
clear yellowish -brown; its head is broad and 
obtuse; its thorax has a somewhat greyish col- 
our ; its abdomen is rusty brown, with a tinge 
of yellow, and a series of dorsal spots; and its 
wings are whitish, with a black undulated trans- 
verse fascia behind the middle. The female, in 
a series of sudden descents or dartings, deposits 
her eggs upon the hair of some part of the horse, 
within reach of his mouth, making them in- 
stantly adhere by means of a glutinous secretion 
which she gives out along with them, and some- 
times depositing upon a single horse so many 
as four hundred or five hundred eggs. Each egg 
is somewhat conical in shape, the attached end 
forming the apex; and, when seen through a 
magnifying glass, is shagreened on the surface 
with transverse and longitudinal strie. The 
horse, in licking himself, takes up a considerable | 
proportion of the eggs with his tongue; the eggs | 
disclose their animated contents either while on | 
the tongue, or very speedily after passing into the 
stomach ; and the larve immediately attach 
themselves to the stomach’s inner tissue, and | 
there remain in security, from the end of | 
summer or beginning of autumn, till late in 
spring, enjoying a temperature of about 102° of 
Fahrenheit, suffering no injury from the action 
of the gastric juices, feeding upon the mucus or 
the chyme, and gradually though slowly growing 
to maturity of size. Each larva is shaped some- 
what like a flask or elongated bag ; it has a pale 
yellowish colour; it possesses at the sides of its 
mouth two hooks, with which it anchors itself to 
the stomach’s membrane ; and it is engirdled 
with several belts or rings of spinelets and pro- 
jecting points, by means of which it regains its 
position when, at any time, it accidentally loses 
its hold. When it attains maturity, it disen- 
gages itself from its anchorage, is carried with 
the horse’s food into the villous portion of the 
stomach, passes out of it with the chyme, and is 
