340 
REVIEWS. 
We presume Mr. Brown’s observations are such as have 
been gleaned at the Cirencester Agricultural College, which, 
from its circumscribed limits, must have forbidden him to 
write with that degree of confidence which a wider sphere of 
observation would have inspired ; to this we may refer such 
passages as we find in his “ Preface,” viz., “ that the rules 
given in those pages will be found exceptionable , in certain breeds 
and under certain conditions , cannot be even a matter of doubt , &c. 
&c” Now, for our part, we do not believe, under a proper 
inquiry, i. e., a wide and extensive research into the subject, 
that there will remain any u doubt” whatever on dentition, 
&c., save and except such as we meet with among horses : 
on the contrary, we believe that, allowances being made for 
season of birth, mode of rearing, kind of keep, &c., all animals 
will, by their teeth, show unexceptionably their period of age, 
true, at least, to the year of their existence, and that we run 
no more risk of being deceived or mistaken through the 
mouths of oxen, sheep, pigs, &c., than we do with horses. 
If there be admitted to be any variation whatever in regard to 
this, “ the present improved breeds of cattle may be adduced 
as showing more or less forwardness in their coming to ma- 
turity, over the old or former breeds ; but this is the effect of 
better care, and tendance, and keep, and not to be advanced 
as any change in their inherent nature; Nature is ever true to 
her purpose, at least, is so far to be implicitly relied upon, 
that she on no occasion shows an animal of one year of birth 
to belong to another and different year, by any deception or 
false indication of mouth; there may . be, and is, more or less 
latitude in the backwardness or forwardness of mouth, in the 
cutting and development of teeth, but the year remains un- 
changed ; it is a standard sign not to be depraved or counter- 
feited by any tricks of art. These remarks are confirmed by 
an extract from Girard, taken from the Veterinarian , which 
runs as follows : — 
“‘But these rules, the result of long and accurate observation, and cor- 
rect and well founded at the time, when, and in the countries where they 
were made, are no longer applicable and true in regard to certain indivi- 
duals and certain breeds.’ In explanation of this the writer continues : 
e Indeed, thanks to the progress of agriculture, to a better system o f 
