TEETH.] 



THE HOESE, AND 



[TEEin. 



A naturally vicious horse will show his dis- 

 position in the designing glance of his eyes, 

 and by laying back his ears. It is true, the 

 kind and playful horse will lay down his ears ; 

 but he will not be a very skilful physiogno- 

 mist who cannot easily discriminate between 

 the countenance of a vicious and a playful 

 one. The wicked and resolute expression of 

 the one is generally so determinedly indexed, 

 that there are but few men who will not 

 instantly discover it. It is hardly necessary 

 to caution our readers against the purchase of 

 such an animal. 



These various examinations of the intended 

 purchase may probably give satisfaction, as far 

 as the eye is concerned ; yet there may be 

 solid objections to be adduced against their 

 being made final. The horse has now been 

 shown to every advantage by the seller. He 

 has been ridden by a jockey, accustomed, by 

 his profession, to make the most of any animal 

 he has to show ; by one whose able hands and 

 habitual use of the spurs, do not fail to com- 

 mand the most implicit obedience from the 

 animal, and which will make him put his best 

 foot forward. A buyer, expecting to find the 

 accomplishment of all this under his own 

 management of the horse, may find himself 

 very unpleasantly deceived. Many horses are 

 occasionally restive when mounted by a timid 

 rider, and have cunning enough, very soon, to 

 ascertain that fact; while, with a good and 

 fearless rider, they will go quietly. 



We should always recommend, before the 

 buyer pays his money, that he should claim 

 the privilege of riding the animal several miles 

 on the high road, in his walk, trot, canter, and 

 gallop, and then judge for himself whether he 

 is likely to suit him in his paces or not. It 

 should be remarked, that the wind and con- 

 dition of horses made up for sale, must not be 

 put to immediate and too severe tests ; and if 

 wanted for hard work, should have sufficient 

 preparation by moderate daily exercise, and 

 pui'ging, if necessary. 



We have purposely refrained from alluding 

 to the teeth till now, these being incontestably 

 the parts of the body capable of furnishing 

 the most certain indications of the number of 

 years that the animal has lived ; and the in- 

 cisors, or nippers, in particular, are here our 

 best informants. They are, indeed, the only 

 170 



teeth that give correct ideas of the age of the 

 horse throughout almost the entire duration 

 of his life. The difficulty of examining the 

 molars or grinders, and the irregularity of 

 their table, prevent our being able to obtain 

 any result from their inspection. The period 

 of the protrusion of the tushes varies much ; 

 and they do not rub against each other, 

 but sideways and across, and can only be 

 considered as an accessory means of judging. 

 Besides, the mare is not always provided with 

 them. 



Professor Owen, in his treatise on The 

 Principal Forms of the Skeleton and the Teeth, 

 says, that teeth, like bone, are the result of 

 the combination of certain earthy salts with a 

 pre-existing cellular basis of animal matter. 

 " The salts are nearly the same as those in 

 bone, but enter in a larger proportion into the 

 composition of the tooth, and render it a harder 

 body. So composed, teeth are peculiar to the 

 back- boned — vertebrate — animals, and are at- 

 tached to parts of the mouth, commonly to the 

 jaws. They present many varieties as to 

 number, size, form, structure, position, and 

 mode of attachment; but are principally 

 adapted for seizing, tearing, dividing, pound- 

 ing, or grinding the food. In some species 

 they are modified to serve as formidable 

 weapons of offijnce and defence ; in others, as 

 ends in locomotion, means of anchorage, in- 

 struments for uprooting or cutting down trees, 

 or for transport and working of building mate- 

 rials. They are characteristic of age and sex ; 

 and in man they have secondary relations, 

 subservient to beauty and speech. 



" Teeth are always related to the food and 

 habits of the animal, and are therefore highly 

 interesting to the physiologist. They form, 

 for the same reason, important guides to the 

 naturalist in the classification of animals ; and 

 their value, as zoological characters, is en- 

 hanced by the facility with which, from their 

 position, they can be examined in living or 

 recent animals ; whilst the durability of their 

 tissues renders them not less available to the 

 paljeonthologist in the determination of the 

 nature and affinities of extinct species, of 

 whose organisation they are often the sole 

 remains discoverable in the deposits of former 

 periods of the earth's history. 



" The substance of teeth is not so uniform 



