760 EXAMINATION FOR AGE. 



an ordinary ox of two-and-a-half years. As the chief function of 

 the incisor teeth is the prehension and division of food that offers 

 a certain amount of resistance to its removal from the place it 

 occupies, or to its entrance into the ■ mouth, it is reasonable to 

 conclude that horses which have to graze on grass of a dry nature, 

 or consume forage that requires a good deal of cutting, will wear 

 out their incisors, especially, their front and middle ones, quicker 

 than animals that are fed, principally, on corn and " chop," which 

 demand but little aid from the incisor teeth for their prehension 

 and division. This conforms to what I have been told concerning 

 the rapid wear of the incisors of horses fed on sugar-cane as a 

 part of their fodder in some districts of America. The fact of 

 mares which have milk-teeth, being in foal, considerably (say, for 

 a year or more) delays .the fall of these teeth and the appearance 

 of the permanent ones. I have seen the same thing occur in cases 

 of osteoporosis (p. 259). 



The fraudulent practice of extracting certain of the milk incisors, 

 in order to hasten the appearance of the permanent, ones, may be 

 successful in its object to an extent of two or three months, at the 

 farthest. It appears, that if the operation be performed too long, 

 say, more than six months, before the usual fall of the temporary 

 teeth, the result is not " advanced " in any way ; for the resulting 

 wound soon closes up, and leaves a hard scar. To be effectual, it 

 should not be done more than three months before the natural 

 fall of the teeth. In England, it has been frequently performed 

 on four-and-a-half-yearold mouths, in order to make them resemble 

 those of five-year-old animals. The fraud is easily recognised 

 from the fact that the central or lateral permanent incisors, as 

 the case may be, do not show wear commensurate with the 

 absence of the milk-teeth which have been removed. Also, the 

 extent of the eruption of the replacing teeth is, often, not sufficient 

 to account for the fall of the milk-teeth which preceded them. 

 Many copers, being ignorant that, as a great rule, the upper milk 

 incisors fall out earlier than the lower ones, remove the latter only, 

 and thus perpetrate a transparent fraud. English dealers often 

 call these animals " Yorkshire five-year-olds." 



Dates from vrhich Horses are Aged. , 



In England, thoroughbreds take their age from 1st January. 

 Thus, an animal of Stud-Book parentage, dropped any time, say, 

 in the year 1914, would remain a foal till the 31st December, 

 1914; would be a yearling on the following day, and would 

 remain so up to the 31st December, 1915, and he would be a two- 

 year-old from the 1st January to the 31st December, 1916. Half- 



