14 THE HORSE. 



To speak of the colours of these animals to the 

 uninitiated, who are ambitious of describing things 

 by their proper technical stable names, here followeth 

 the horseman's and sportsman's phraseology in the 

 case, in which by the by, mirabile dictu, we have 

 yet no novelty or addition. The colours of horses are 

 thus expressed — black, white; grey, dappled 



GREY, IRON GREY, ELEA-BITTEN GREY; red, nut- 

 meg, and blue roan ; strawberry ; bald, face 

 whited; pyebald (spotted); dun; chestnut, light 

 and dark ; brown, light and dark ; bay, light bright, 

 or yellow. Sorrel is an obsolete Suffolk term for 

 deep chestnut. 



The age of the horse is discoverable on a general 

 view, by the freshness or deadness of his hair, and 

 its intermixture with grey, and by the hollowness 

 and sinking in the orbits of his eyes : with precision, 

 bv the marks in his mouth, which continue to rising, 

 namely, coming eight years of age; beyond which 

 period nothing relative can be determined, but on 

 conjecture. The length of his teeth, their edges 

 standing more outward, by which aged horses are 

 apt to bite and wound their lips in mastication ; or 

 if short, their foulness and dingy colour, are signs 

 of old age in apparent degrees. Nature has allowed 

 the horse forty teeth, twenty-four grinders, or double 

 teeth, twelve fore teeth, and four tushes, which last 

 standing in the corners of the mouth, are peculiar 

 to the horse, being seldom found with the mare ; or 

 if found, scarcely to be distinguished by the finger. 

 The front teeth or gatherers are flat and smooth ; 

 the back jaw teeth or guilders, twelve above, and 

 twelve below, are strong, double, and with sharp 



