84 PHYSIOLOGY AT THE FARM. 



uous or milk teeth. This, however, as well as the set of per- 

 manent teeth, is less numerous than the corresponding teeth 

 in the horse. For the ox, like all the horned ruminating ani- 

 mals, has no upper incisors to correspond to the upper nippers 

 of the horse. Neither has the ox canine teeth or tushes. In 

 the ox, as in mammals generally, with the exception of man, 

 there is a large space of the jaw' destitute of teeth between the 

 incisors or front teeth and the back teeth, called molars or 

 grinding teeth. 



The number of teeth in the adult ox is 32 the same as the 

 number of the teeth in man. The teeth of the ox differ in 

 character from the human teeth. The incisors or front teeth, 

 though confined in the ox to the lower jaw, are the same in 

 number as in man. The back teeth or grinding teeth in the 

 ox are more numerous namely, 24 that is, six on each side 

 of each jaw ;' while in man there are only 20 molar teeth. 

 The three anterior molar teeth on each side of each jaw in the 

 ox, like the two bicuspid molar teeth in man, are termed the 

 false molar teeth. 



The milk or deciduous teeth in the ox are the same in num- 

 ber as the milk-teeth in man namely, twenty. Of these, 

 eight are incisors, confined to the lower jaw, and twelve 

 are molar namely, three on each side of each jaw. The 

 permanent dentition in the ox commences considerably be- 

 fore the shedding of the first set begins ; thus the first per- 

 manent molar comes out in the back part of the mouth from 

 the fourth to the sixth month after birth, while the middle in- 

 cisors of the first set are only shed from the fourteenth to the 

 twentieth month of the calf's age. The second permanent 

 incisor replaces the corresponding milk incisor from the 

 twenty-eighth to the thirty-second month. In the latter part 

 of the second year the fifth molar, a permanent tooth, appears 

 in the back part of each jaw. In the course of the third year 



