10*2 MAMMALIA. 



v 



EQUUS, Linnaeus. 



The Horse has six incisors in each jaw. The male has also two small 

 additional canini in the upper jaw, and sometimes in 

 both, which are almost always wanting in the female. 

 Between these canini and the first molar is that unoccu- 

 pied space which corresponds to the angle of the lips, 

 where the bit is placed, by which alone man has been 

 enabled to subdue and tame this powerful animal. 



E. caballus, Lin. (The Horse.) This noble associate 

 of man, in the chase, in war, and in the works of agri- 

 culture, the arts, and commerce, is the most important 

 and carefully attended of all the animals he has subdued. 

 Head and foot of the It does not seem to exist in a wild state at the present 

 Horee. time; those places excepted, where horses formerly 



domesticated have been set at liberty, as in Tartary and America, where they 

 live in troops, each of which is led and defended by an old male. The horse's 

 age is known by the incisors. The milk teeth begin to grow about fifteen days 

 after the colt is foaled; at two years and a half the middle ones are replaced ; 

 at three and a half the two next ones, and at four and a half the outermost or 

 corner ones; all these teeth have originally an indented crown, which they 

 gradually lose by detrition ; when seven or eight years old, this is entirely 

 removed, and the horse is no longer marked ; the lower canini are produced at 

 three and a half, the upper ones at four ; they remain pointed till six, and at 

 ten they begin to peel off. 



Every one knows how much this animal varies in size and colour. The 

 principal races exhibit sensible differences in the form of the head, and in their 

 proportions; the most beautiful and swift is the Arab; the largest and strongest 

 are from the coast of the North Sea, and the smallest of the race from the 

 north of Sweden and Corsica. 



E. hemiortus. (The Dzigguetai.) A species which, as to its proportions, is 

 intermediate between the horse and the ass, and lives in troops in the sandy 

 deserts of Central Asia. It is of a cream colour, with a black mane, and 

 a dorsal line of the same colour ; the tail is terminated by a black tuft. It is 

 probably the wild mule of the ancients. 



E. axinus. (The Ass.) Known by its long ears, the tuft which terminates 

 the tail, and the black cross on the shoulders, which is the first indication of 

 the stripes which distinguish the following species. Originally from the great 

 deserts of Central Asia, it is still to be found there in a wild state, and in innu- 

 merable troops, ranging from north to south, according to the season ; hence 

 it thrives but poorly in the more northern climates. The hoarseness of its 

 voice, or bray, depends upon two small peculiar cavities situated at the bottom 

 of the larynx. 



