56 

 an oblong and somewhat oval figure ; by degrees, 

 however, they become angular, and ultimately more 

 or less square. The continental authors have been 

 very minute, and not a little profuse upon the changes 

 of form which the tables undergo, and attribute the 

 alteration to the gradual wear of the teeth. The 

 correctness of this view they endeavour to establish 

 by sawing a tooth through at various places, and 

 attempting to show, that the forms of the surfaces 

 exposed by this process correspond to the shapes 

 assumed by the table during the progress of age. 

 Their deductions can, in the study, be made to ap- 

 pear true, but in the stable will not bear the absolute 

 application to which these writers would put them. 

 By means of this test, Pessina asserted he would tell 

 the age of a horse, accurately, up to the twenty- 

 second year. The Girards acknowledge the tables 

 will not guide them so far, but nevertheless are wil- 

 ling to apply them during the first seventeen years of 

 the animal's life. I leave the reader to form his own 

 opinion of the value of such speculations — for while 

 I confess they are of some worth as guides to the pri- 

 mary study, and helps to the proper understanding of 

 the cause of those changes of figure to be antici- 



