152 AGE OF THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



undeveloped ; the city dealer fashions the mouth to destroy the 

 evidences of cribhing, even at the risk of making the horse 

 appear a year or two older, or alters the tables of the teeth to 

 deceive the inexperienced buyer into thinking an old horse to 

 be one just arrived at adnlt age. 



Within recent years, moreover, especially in America, there 

 has arisen a fraternity of " Equine Dentists," a guild endowed 

 with great enthusiasm, who not only relieve the animals suffer- 

 ing from irregular and sharp molars, but, with artistic skill, 

 remodel the whole mouth, and produce changes which some- 

 times greatly complicate the characters of the teeth as indica- 

 tions of the age of the horse. 



REMOVAL OF TEMPORARY INCISORS IN ORDER TO AGE 

 THE HORSE. 



In Ireland, in Normandy (in France), in Virginia, and in 

 some sections of the West, the temporary incisors are drawn 

 some time before they would naturally drop to be replaced by 

 the permanent ones, in order to hasten the eruption of the latter. 

 If the intermediate incisors are drawn in a rising three-year-old, 

 the permanent ones appear at three years, or soon after ; and if 

 the temporary corner incisors are then drawn, they are replaced 

 in a few months by the permanent teeth ; so that a rising four- 

 year-old may have all of its permanent incisors, and the mouth 

 of a four-year-old off may have the appearance of that of a horse 

 a year older. The condition of the tush teeth does not control 

 the age to any extent, as some horses have them between three 

 and four years of age, and in others their eruption does not 

 take place until six. 



We have seen that when the incisors first appear they 

 emerge from the gums somewhat obliquely, and later take their 

 proper position, making their incisive arch a regularly rounded 

 curve. When the permanent incisors have been hastened by 

 the removal of the temporary ones, the former keep their oblique 

 position, the arch is never regular, and is evidently diminished 

 in width. If the removal has been recent the parts are inflamed, 

 and there is sometimes a periostitis, which is evidently trau- 



