444 



THE HORSE 



Dogs are subjpct to convulsions, and hundreds of them die, from the irrita- 

 tion caused by the cutting or shedding of their teeth : but the horse 

 appears to feel little inconvenience. The gums and palate are occasionally 

 somewhat hot and swollen, but the sliglUest scarification will remove this. 

 The teeth of the horse are more necessary to him than those of the other 

 animals are to them. The child may be fed, and the dog will bolt his 

 victuals, but the food of the horse must be well ground down, or the nutri- 

 ment cannot be extracted from it. 



. At seven years, the mark, in the 

 way in which we have described it, is 

 worn out in the four central nippers, 

 and fast wearing away in the corner 

 teeth ; and the tush is beginnmg to be 

 altered. It is rounded at the point j 

 rounded at the edges; still round with- 

 out ; and beginning to gel round inside. 

 At eight years old, the mark is gone 

 from all the bottom nippers ; the tush 

 is rounder in every way ; and the 

 mark is now said to be out of the 

 mouth. There is nothing remaining 

 in the bottom nippers which can after- 

 wards clearly show the age of the 

 horse, or justify the most experienced 

 examiner in giving a positive opinion. 

 Dishonest dealers have been said to 

 resort to a method of prolonging the 

 mark in the lower nippers. It is called 

 bishojnng, from the name of the scoun- 

 drel who invented it. The horse of 

 eight or nine years old is thrown, and 

 with an engraver's tool a hole is dug 

 in the now almost plain surface of the 

 corner teeth, and in shape and depth 

 resembling the mark in a seven-year- 

 old horse. The whole is then burned 

 with a heated iron, and a permanent black stain is left : the next pair of 

 nippers are sometimes lightly touched. An ignorant man would very 

 easily be imposed on by this trick; but the irregular appearance of the 

 cavity, the diffusion of the black stain around the tushes, the sharpened 

 edges and concave inner surface of which can never be given again, and 

 the marks on the upper nippers, together with the general conformation of 

 the horse, can never deceive the careful examiner. 



Horsemen, after the horse is eight years old, are accustomed to look to 

 the nippers in the upper jaw, and some conclusion has been drawn fronn 

 the appearances which they present. It cannot be doubted that the mark 

 remains in them some years after it is obliterated from the nippers in the 

 lower jaw ; because the hard substance, or kind of cement, by which the 

 pit or funnel in the centre of the tooth is occupied, does not reach so high, 

 and there is consequently a greater depth of tooth to be worn away m order 

 to reach it ; and because the upper nippers are not so much exposed to 

 friction and wear as the under. The lower jaw alone is moved, and pressed 

 forcibly upon the food ; the upper jaw is without motion, and has only to 

 resist that pressure. 



