12 DIGESTION AND FOOD. 



tumbler of water, may reduce the swelling, and cause the 

 animal to feed better. 



It is worthy of notice how slight interference with the 

 action of the horse's incisors may lead to apparently serious 

 results. In one instance, a horse refused food, manifested 

 much irritation by a constant slavering, and rapidly lost 

 flesh. Several examinations failed to elicit the cause, until 

 a veterinary surgeon discovered a piece of wood lying across 

 the palate, and wedged firmly in between the upper incisors. 

 On the removal of the offending object, the animal regained 

 its appetite and health. From such a simple accident, this 

 horse would have lost his life, if left unrelieved, as certainly 

 as in the worst forms of choking. 



Position is an important element in the act of grazing, 

 and we observe the horse expanding the fore-legs, some- 

 times bending them, and the lips carry the long grass 

 between the incisors. A horse cannot live on very bare 

 pasture. He cannot thrive with close-biting animals like 

 sheep ; and, as the latter deprive a field of the best and most 

 succulent young plants as rapidly as these force through the 

 soil, the horse fails with his apparatus destined to gather 

 much at every movement of his head and body. 



By disease a horse may be prevented grazing in the position 

 rei'-rred to, as by holding the head closely to the ground, 

 co'.gestion of the brain is favoured; and, if one, or both, 

 jugulars (the neck veins) are obstructed, as the result of 

 previous inflammation, or from other causes, we observe that 

 tne head swells, the animal staggers, reels to and fro, and 

 falls. Like the horse with a parrot mouth, such an animal 

 requires to be fed from the rack and manger. 



The upper lip of the ox is short, and endowed with only 

 slight power of motion ; it is blended with the solid muzzle, 

 which is covered by a thick secreting membrane. The tongue 



