WHIMS AND VICIOUS HABITS. 867 



The old French law upon the redkibitory vices ranked cribbing in 

 the air, without support or without wear of the teeth, among the vices 

 capable of causing a nullification of the sale. At present, according to 

 the new law of 1884, cribbing properly so called, whatever its form, 

 with or without wear of the teeth, is to be considered as redhibitory. 



The vice manifests itself usually as follows : To crib in the air, the 

 animal begins by agitating his lips by frequent, rapid, and slight up- 

 and-down movements of these organs ; then he suddenly lowers his head, 

 sometimes to a level with his knees, and then swallows a mouthful of 

 air, with or without the production of the guttural sound which has 

 wrongly been compared to an eructation. Often this effort is not suc- 

 cessful ; in this case it is confined to a simple deglutition of saliva, 

 which, however, does not appear to give the desired satisfaction, since 

 the attempts are renewed until the desire is satisfied. 



Cribbing ivith support differs from the preceding only in this, — that 

 in order to execute it the inferior extremity of the head is supported 

 upon a resisting body of some kind. Horses which are prevented from 

 cribbine: in this manner sometimes learn to crib in the air, and vice 

 versa. We have seen (page 753) that the body chosen as the point of 

 support is very variable. Sometimes it is the bottom of the manger, 

 the border of the manger, the internal or the external edge of this 

 border, the lower cross-piece of the hay-rack, the halter-strap ; some- 

 times it is the window-sill, the side of a stall, the end of the shaft, that 

 of the pole, the harness of his mate, etc. ; more rarely the animal cribs 

 upon himself In most instances, the teeth effect the support ; in other 

 cases it is the lips, the tuft of the chin, the inferior border of the jaw. 

 The subject often previously moves his lips over the body which he is 

 going to seize, or he licks it and wets it with saliva. Then he presses, 

 forcibly on it, arches his neck if this body is somewhat low, and, finally^ 

 energetically contracts his inferior cervical muscles, especially the sterno- 

 maxillaries,^ and at that moment produces the guttural noise of which 

 we have spoken. 



When the teeth rest on the point of support, there is an abnormal 

 wear of the incisors. As the reader already knows the various char- 

 acters of this wear (see page 753), we shall not refer to it again. We 

 need only bear in mind that in cases of expert testimony it is useful 

 to prove its existence, and to show clearly that it is the necessary con- 

 sequence of the manner in which the support is effected. Horses 



1 At autopsies, we have frequently noticed, as M. Berthe has done, that these muscles are 

 much more voluminous than under ordinary conditions. 



