of the Animnh of the Farm. 
395 
the horse wants about three months to complete the year. It 
is not essential that the examiner should conform to usage in 
respect of the terms above mentioned, unless he thinks fit to 
accept them, nor is he compelled to insist that the year shall be 
completed in all cases on the first of January or May. Where 
accuracy is required, the statement of the opinion of a horse's 
age will be made absolutely, and without any reference to an 
arbitrary standard, which nevertheless may, for ordinary pur- 
poses, have a certain amount of convenience. 
In reference to horses which are entered at a certain age at 
an Agricultural Exhibition, a question has more than once 
arisen as to the precise meaning or intention of the terms 
applying to the class, and the question has not yet been an- 
swered in a satisfactory manner. For example, an animal in 
the four-year-old class, in which a certificate of the year of birth 
only is required, has a condition of dentition which indicates 
that he is nearly five years old. This may be admitted by the 
exhibitor, but he also contends that the horse is a four-year-old 
until he has reached his fifth birthday. If this plea be allowed, 
it is obvious that a horse foaled in the beginning of the year 
may have to compete with one which was foaled late in the 
same year. It may, however, be suggested that the statement of 
the day of birth will at once dispose of this difficulty. 
Evidence of the Age of the Hokse during Temporaky 
AND Permanent Dentition. 
At birth the foal has the two central temporary incisors some- 
what laterally placed, in consequence of the jaw not being wide 
enough to accommodate them both in front. The teeth are 
nearly covered with the gum, and only a small portion of the 
upper anterior edge is to be seen free from the membrane. In 
some cases the extreme corners of the lateral incisors are to 
be detected in outline under the gum. The three temporary 
molars are usually entirely covered with gum at the time of 
birth. This state of the mouth is shown in the next drawing 
(Fig, 3, p. 396), which was taken, on the morning of its birth, 
from a cart colt foaled at the Royal Agricultural College Farm. 
By the end of the second week after birth, the central incisors 
will be fairly in the mouth, and in six or eight weeks the 
lateral teeth, dnd also the temporary molars, are well up. In 
the illustration (Fig. 4, p. 396) the state of the incisor teeth at 
two months old is shown. The central incisors at this age have 
the surfaces very slightly worn, and the cavity or infundibulum 
is not surrounded by a line of worn structure ; only the anterior 
edges of the teeth have yet been subject to attrition. In the 
