SECOND APPENDIX. 



THE ANCIENTS ON EQUINE AGE MARKS. 



XENOPHON (B. C. 444), gives several rules for bridling a horse. 

 The last one is as follows : " And if he does not receive it then, 

 let the lip be pressed to the eye-tooth. There are very few which 

 do not receive it when they suffer this." Again, in giving rules 

 for purchasing a horse, " to avoid being cheated in the bargain," 

 he says : " First, then, let it not escape notice what his age is, 

 for if he has not the foal-teeth, he can neither give us pleasure 

 with anticipated exertion nor can be easily disposed of again." 

 "The Whole Works of Xenophon," p. 719. 



Aristotle (B. C. 384), says (History Animals, Bonn's Trans., pp. 

 1*70-1): "The horse and the mule attain perfection after casting 

 their teeth, and when they have cast them all, it is not easy to 

 know their age. "Wherefore they say that before casting its teeth 

 the horse has its mark, which it has not afterward. After the 

 teeth have been changed, the age is usually ascertained by the 

 canine tooth, for that in riding horses is generally worn down, 

 for the bridle rubs against it. In horses which have not been 

 ridden it is large and not worn. In young horses it is small and 

 sharp. * * * The ass sheds its first teeth at thirty months 

 old. The second six months afterward. The third and fourth in 

 the same way. These fourth teeth are called the marking-teeth." 



Aristotle evidently did not understand that the teeth themselves 

 have marks. Of course the artificial marks of the bit-worn tushes 

 do not count 



Yarro (B. C. 116), says : " Should they desire to form herds of 

 horses and mares, such as are seen in the Peloponnese and the 

 Appulia, they should, first of all, ascertain the age of the indi- 

 viduals, which, it is said, must not be less than three nor more 

 ten years old. It is by the teeth that they find out the age of a 

 horse, as well as that of all split-footed animals. "When two years 

 and a half old the horse begins to lose his four middle teeth (two 

 upper and two lower). On entering his fourth year he loses again 

 (from each jaw) the two next to those he has already shed, and 



