ON THE TEETH, AND HENCE THE AGE. THE mouth of the horse, when he has the full complement, contains forty teeth. These are of three kinds, namely-incisors, or cutting teeth-canine, or tustles-and molar, or grinders; and are thus arranged by natural historians: In front of each jaw stand the incisors, twelve in number, behind which lie the four canine teeth, one above and one below, on each side of the jaws: at some distance beyond these will be found the twenty-four moiars, and these are flat at the crown, and are covered with ridges of enamel which penetrates the substance of the tooth. When five or six days old, the four front teeth begin to shoot; and between the sixth and ninth months the last of the incisors make their appearance, and the colt's mouth is completed. The yearling, by the completion of the first year, has four molars and grinders above and below; at two years another will be added; and by the time the colt is three years old the last of these teeth ought to be protruding; and between the age of three and a half and four years the tusks usually appear, which do not arrive at their full growth till about the sixth year. The horse, however, has two sets of nippers and grinders; those which come first are called the temporary, which presently make way for the permanent set. The permanent nippers make their appearance as follows, and are generally divided into three kinds : the front, which grow between the age of two and a half and three years; between three and a half and four years the next pair of nippers called the middle or dividers will be changed; and the last important change in the mouth takes place between four and a half and five, when the corner nippers are shed to make way for the new ones, when the colt changes its name for that of horse, and the filly becomes a mare. in By this time, too, the permanent molars or grinders have likewise been completed. As the horse advances age the cavities of the nippers gradually begin to wear away at six the mark of the front, and by eight years the mark or cavity of the corner nippers, has disappeared; the horse then is termed aged, and it requires a vast experience to become a proficient in telling the age after this period. Dealers have at this crisis been known to practise a species of deception called bishoping, in order to procure a better sale for their animals, but this fraud a careful eye will easily detect. With an engraver's tool a hole is filed in the corner nippers, and then a hot iron is inserted, which leaves a dark mark and cavity, but of a blacker nature, and more strongly impressed, than in the natural tooth. Some pull the foal teeth out, but this may be easily detected by rubbing the finger along the gum where the tusks grow, which may generally be felt before the corner teeth appear. M. Girard thus states his opinion after this:- "At eight years old there is usually complete obliteration of the mark in the lower jaw, the nippers, the dividers, and the corner teeth; the central enamel is triangular and nearer the posterior than the anterior edge of the tooth; the termination of the cavity next the root appears near the anterior edge in the form of a yellowish band, longish from one side to the |