144 



THE HORSE. 



Doo-s are subject to convulsions, and hundreds of them die, from the irri- 

 tation caused by the cutting or shedding of their teeth ; but the horse 

 appears to feel little inconvenience. The gums and palate are occasionally 

 somewhat hot and swollen, but the slightest scarification will remove this. 

 The teeth of the horse are more necessary to him than those of the other 

 animals are to them. The child may be fed, and the dog will bolt his 

 victuals, but the food of the horse must be well ground down, or the nutri- 

 ment cannot be extracted from it. 



At seven years, the mark, in the way 

 in which we have described it, is worn 

 out in the four central nippers, and 

 fast wearing away in the corner teeth ; 

 and the tush is beginning to be altered. 

 It is rounded at the point ; rounded 

 at the edges ; still round without ; and 

 beginning to get round inside. 



At eight years old, the mark is gone 

 from all the bottom nippers ; the tush 

 is rounder in every way; and the 

 mark is now said to be out of the 

 mouth. There is nothing remaining 

 in the bottom nippers which can after- 

 wards clearly shew the age of the 

 horse, or justify the most experienced 

 examiner in giving a positive opinion. 

 Dishonest dealers have been said 

 to resort to a method of prolonging 

 the mark in the lower nippers. It is 

 called bishoping, from the name of 

 the scoundrel who invented it. The 

 horse of eight or nine years old is 

 thrown, and with an engraver's tool 

 a hole is dug in the now almost plain 

 surface of the corner teeth, and in 

 shape and depth resembling the mark 

 in a seven-year- old horse. The whole 

 is then burned with a heated iron, and a permanent black stain is left : the 

 next pair of nippers are sometimes lightly touched. An ignorant man 

 would very easily be imposed on by this trick ; but the irregular appearance 

 of the cavity, the diffusion of the black stain around the tushes, the sharp- 

 ened edges and concave inner surface of which can never be given again, 

 and the marks on the upper nippers, together with the general conforma- 

 tion of the horse, can never deceive the careful examiner. 



Horsemen, after the horse is eight years old, are accustomed to look to 

 the nippers in the upper jaw, and some conclusion has been drawn from 

 the appearances which they present. It cannot be doubted that the mark 

 remains in them some years after it is obliterated from the nippers in the 

 lower jaw ; because the hard substance, or kind of cement, by which the 

 pit or funnel in the centre of the tooth is occupied, does not reach so high, 

 and there is consequently a greater depth of tooth to be worn away in order 

 to reach it ; and because the upper nippers are not so much exposed to 

 friction and wear as the under. The lower jaw alone is moved, and pressed 

 forcibly upon the food : the upper jaw is without motion, and has only to 

 resist that pressure. 



