UNCERTAINTIES. 257 



with distinct edges that may be felt with the finger on the inside. 

 This gradually grows flat, and then rounding, so that at ten 

 years old the inside is nearly as rounding as the outside. Tlie 

 point too is always growing less sharp, so that at ten years it is 

 blunt, at fifteen years it is quite rounded off, and at twenty it is 

 flat on the top. 



622. — In some horses the age between twelve and twenty can 

 be judged with much accuracy, by a line or very narrow mark or 

 groove that makes its appearance on the centre of the corner 

 top nippers, at about eleven years of age. By looking closely at 

 the front of the teeth you will see a straight narrow line growing 

 down from the gums. This will grow a little longer every year, 

 until at about twenty years of age, it will be all the way down 

 the tooth. When half way down you would therefore reckon 

 the horse to be fifteen or sixteen years old, and so on, as the line 

 creeps down from top to bottom. 



This line is not found in all horses and is not a very reliable 

 criterion though often useful. Indeed, each of the indications 

 of age is liable to fail in exceptional cases, and hence the necessity 

 of knowing and observing more than one, and correcting them 

 bv each other. 



G23. — There are some kinds of horses in which the bones 

 and teeth are harder than in others, and the marks do not wear 

 out so fast, but the greatest deviation in wearing is caused 

 by the peculiar position or direction that the teeth sometimes 

 take. In some horses the nippers project so much, that they do 

 not wear down in the usual form. In such cases the marks will 

 not wear out for several years later than they should do, but the 

 teeth will be unnaturally long, and such long projecting teeth 

 never belong to a young horse. The age of such horses may be 

 very roughly estimated by the length of the teeth. At five years 

 old a natural nipper will stand about three quarters of an inch 

 above the gums, and as it grows about a twelfth of an inch every 

 year, if it does not wear down, such a horse at seventeen years old 

 would have projecting teeth an inch and three quarters above 

 the gums. 



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