HORSE. 



to press upon the roots of their pred- 

 ecessors, and then the breeder ex- 

 tracts tlie central milk-teeth. Those 

 below, having no longer anything to 

 resist their progress, grow far more 

 rapidly than they otherwise would do, 

 and the scoundrel gains four or five 

 months in the apparent age of his 

 colt. 



" Can this trickery be detected ! 

 Not always, except by him who is 

 well accustomed to horses. The 

 comparatively slow wasting of the 

 other nippers, the difference of the 

 development of these nippers in the 

 upper and under jaw — for the breed- 

 er usually confines his roguery to the 

 lower jaw, the upper one bemg com- 

 paratively seldom examined — these 

 circumstances, together with a defi- 

 ciency of general development in the 

 colt, will alone enable the purchaser 

 to detect the attempted cheat. 



" The honest mouth of a three- 

 year old horse should be thus form- 

 ed : the central teeth are palpably 

 larger than the others, and have the 

 mark on their upper surface evident 

 and well defined. They will, how- 

 ever, be lower than the other teeth. 

 The mark in the next pair of nippers 

 will be nearly worn away, and that 

 in the corner nippers will begin to 

 wear {Fig. 3). 



" At three years and a half the 

 second nippers will be pushed from 

 their sockets, and their place gradu- 

 ally supplied by a new pair ; and at 

 four and a half the corner nippers 

 will be undergoing the same process. 

 Thus, at four years old the central 

 nippers will be fully grown ; the next 

 pair will be up. but will not have at- 

 tained their full height ; and the cor- 

 ner nippers will be small, with their 

 mark nearly effaced. At five years 

 old the mark will begin to be effaced 

 from the central teeth, the next pair 

 will be fully grown and the blackness 

 of the mark a little taken off, and the 

 corner pair will be protruding or part- 

 ly grown. 



" At this period, or between the 

 fourth and fifth year, another change 

 will have taken place in the mouth; j 

 the tushes will have begun to appear 

 386 



(Fig. 5). There will be two of them 

 in each jaw, between the nippers and 

 the grinders, considerably nearer to 

 the former than the latter, and par- 

 ticularly so in the lower jaw. The 

 use of these tushes in the domestica- 

 ted state of the horse is not evident ; 

 but they were probably designed as 

 weapons of offence in the wild state 

 of the animal. Attempts are too fre- 

 quently made to hasten the appear- 

 ance of the second and the corner 

 teeth, in the same manner as de- 

 scribed with regard to the first, and 

 the gum is often deeply lanced in or- 

 der to hastei^ the appearance of the 

 tush. 



" At six years old the mark on the 

 central nippers will be diminished, if 

 not obliterated. A depression and a 

 mark of rather brown hue may re- 

 main, but the deep blackened hole in 

 the centre will no longer be found. 

 The other incisors will also be some- 

 what worn, and the tush fully de- 

 veloped. 



"At seven the mark on the next 

 pair of incisors will have nearly dis- 

 appeared, and the tush will be round- 

 ed at the point and the edges. 



"At eight the mark will have dis- 

 appeared from all the incisor teeth, 

 and the tush will be evidently rounder 

 and blunter. 



" At this period another piece of 

 trickery is occasionally practised. 

 The breeder had, until the animal 

 was five years old, been endeavour- 

 ing to give him an older appearance 

 than his years entitled him to, be- 

 cause in proportion as he approached 

 the period when his powers were most 

 perfectly developed his value increas- 

 ed ; but now he endeavours to con- 

 ceal the ravages of age. The horse 

 is cast, and with a sharp-pointed steel 

 instrument a little hole is dug on the 

 surface of the corner incisor, to which 

 a red-hot iron is afterward applied. 

 An indelible black mark is thus left 

 on the tooth. Sometimes the roguery 

 is carried farther ; the next tooth 

 is slightly touched with the engraver 

 and the cautery ; but here the dis- 

 honest dealer generally overreaches 

 himself, for the form and general ap- 



i 



