Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/303

Rh This (showing) is the heel of the horse, and here is the great median toe, answering to the third toe in our own foot; and here we have upon each side two little splint-bones, just as in the fore-limb, which represent the rudiments of the second and the fourth toes—rudiments, that is to say, of the metatarsal bones, the remaining bones having altogether vanished. Let me beg your attention to these peculiarities, because I shall have to refer to them by-and-by. The result of this modification is, that the fore and hind limbs are converted into long, solid, springy, elastic levers, which are the great instruments of locomotion of the horse.

As might be expected, and as I have already said, the apparatus for providing this machine with the fuel which it requires is also of a very highly differentiated character. A horse has, or rather may have, forty-four teeth, but it rarely happens that in our existing horses you find more than forty—for a reason which I will communicate directly—and in a mare it commonly happens that you find no more than thirty-six, because the "tushes," or canine teeth, of the mare are rarely developed. Then there are some curious peculiarities about these teeth. As every one who has had to do with horses knows, the cutting teeth—the incisors—are six above and six below, and those incisors present what is called a "mark;" at least, that mark is usually present in horses up to a certain age. It is a sort of dark patch across the middle of the tooth. The presence of that dark patch arises from a great peculiarity in the structure of the horse's incisor tooth. It is in fact considerably curved, with a deep pit in the middle of the crown, and then a long fang. In the young foal this pit is very deep. As the animal feeds, this pit becomes filled up with its fodder, that fodder becomes more or less carbonized, and then you have the dark mark, and the reason the dark mark serves as an indication of age, for, as the horse feeds, this is more and more worn down, until at last, in an aged horse, the tooth is worn beyond the bottom of the pit, and the mark disappears. Then, as I said, the male horse generally has canine teeth. We need not notice their structure particularly. Following that, you may occasionally notice a very small and rudimentary tooth, but it is very often absent. It really represents the first tooth of the grinding series. Then there follow six great teeth, with exceedingly long crowns. The crowns, in fact, are so long that the teeth take a very long time to wear down, whence arises the possibility of the great age to which horses sometimes attain. This is shown in the side diagram. Then the pattern and structure of a horse's tooth are very curious. The crown of the horse's tooth presents a very complicated pattern; that is to say, supposing this to be one of the grinders of the left side (illustrating) above, there is a kind of wall like a double crescent. Then there are two other crescents, which fall in that direction, and these are complicated by folds, and all the spaces between these crescentic ridges are filled up by a kind