WORMS—are known to be of different kinds; and when any one particular species has taken possession of the stomach, or any part of the intestinal canal, in a horse, they not only occasion extreme pain, or perpetual disquietude, but become inveterate opponents to health, and constant enemies to flesh and condition. Some horses, of strong constitution, will bear their persecuting pinchings for a great length of time, before they give external proof of internal depredation; others, from less patience, or greater irritability, are very early in their indications. Symptoms of worms are various, and not unfrequently deceptive: those most relied upon are a largeness of the belly, with a leanness of the flesh; an unkind and hollow slaring of the coat, a flaccidity of the skin, a dryness of the mouth, a fœtidity of the breath, an occasional looking towards the flank on either side, or stamping with one hind foot or the other when in pain. A kind of straw-coloured sulphureous scurfy stain at the sphincter of the anus, is considered a certain and invariable sign; but ocular demonstration (which very frequently happens) removes the matter beyond all present doubt, and subsequent disappointment. The sorts with which horses are most commonly afflicted, are as follow: _Botts_, a short circular worm, with a shelly kind of coat, picked at one end, and nearly round at the other, not unlike the silk-worm in its dormant state: these adhere closely to the internal coat of the stomach, causing the most excruciating pains as they increase in numbers, and are sometimes so numerous and destructive as to occasion the _loss of life_; instances of which have been proved by an examination of the viscera after death; of which a case is described in Page 132 of "A Compendium of Farriery," by the present Author, published in 1796. These take their seat also in the rectum, (the large intestine nearest the anus,) where they are seen adhering to the interstices as close to each other, during the moments of evacuation, as a swarm of bees; and five or six may be twitched off at a time with the fingers and thumb, just at the critical contraction of the sphincter.