338 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



feet, that is foiiiicl in the hand ot man, with the exception of 

 a thumb. The creature walks upon the two middle fingers, 

 while the others dangle behind, and are known as "dew 

 claws." In the deer we get a similar arrangement, but the 

 third and fourth metacarpal bones become united after birth, 

 so that we find these bones in early life with two narrow 

 cavities. The same is true with the ox'and sheep, but here 

 the outer fingers do not appear, or have been lost, save 'a 

 horny relic of the same within the skin. The bufialo occu- 

 pies an intermediate position in this respect between the ox 

 and the deer ; for we find the terminal bones of these last 

 fingers in their appropriate place. But the horse shows even 

 more degradation, and is thus the lowest expression of the 

 pentadactyle or five-fingered hand ; for this creature walks 

 upon the middle finger alone. The nail is the hoof; the last 

 phalanx is the coffin-bone, in veterinary anatomy ; the next, 

 the lower pastern ; and the third is the upper pastern. The 

 metacarpal is called the cannon-bone, and those little bones 

 in the back of the horse's leg, called "splints," are the rudi- 

 ments of the second and fourth metacarpals, and which bore 

 perfect toes in a fossil representative of the horse, known, 

 from its close resemblance, as the hipparion, and which 

 flourished during the miocene period of geology. This fossil 

 horse walked upon or had at least three toes instead of one ; 

 and we occasionally find, as a freak of nature, even in the 

 modern horse, such a monstrosity, where these outer toes 

 make an appearance. This becomes, therefore, an interesting 

 problem for the naturalist to determine if there arc not some 

 genetic relations in time between the equine genus and 

 hijjparion. 



Thus the veterinary calling, when scientifically pursued, 

 will open a new avenue, and thereby present many allurements 

 in this country for the practical study of comparative anato- 

 my, which heretofore has been confined to only a few co-la- 

 borers in this interesting field of inquiry. 



The teeth also present many points of interest to the stu- 

 dent of veterinary science, and should be carefully studied 

 in the light of morphological anatomy ; for by the dentition 

 we are enabled to tell the age of the horse and of our other 

 domestic animals, more or less accurately, according to the 



