POSITION AND STRUCTURE OF HORSE 27 



the inframaxillary foramen is always some distance 

 from the pit. 



Leaving the skull, attention may be directed 

 to the teeth of the horse, which form an exceedingly 

 important feature in its anatomy. As is well shown 

 in the figure of the skull of a shire stallion in 

 plate iv. fig. I, there is a considerable gap between 

 the front teeth, which are mainly adapted for nipping 

 and biting, and the long series on each side of 

 the face, which are conveniently called cheek-teeth, 

 and whose function is to grind up the grass or 

 other herbage gathered by the front teeth. In the 

 anterior half of the aforesaid gap there occurs, 

 however, in stallions a tusk on each side of both 

 upper and lower jaws, which corresponds to the 

 canine of carnivorous mammals, and is separated, 

 in each jaw, from the three pairs of incisor teeth, 

 which occupy the front of the jaws. In mares the 

 tusks are either very small or wanting, from which 

 it may be inferred that in stallions these teeth are 

 mainly, if not entirely, used in fighting, and not 

 for gathering or masticating food, for which, indeed, 

 they are obviously unsuited. 



The existence of this long gap between the front 

 and the cheek teeth is a specialised feature ; mam- 

 mals of a more primitive type having either the 

 whole of the teeth in contact, or with relatively 

 small intervals on each side of the canines when these 

 are large. A similar long gap occurs in the lower 



