The most important thing to be known, is the age of a horse. As they advance in years the eye-pits commonly sink, but it is from the teeth that we obtain the most certain knowledge of their age; of these the horse has 40, 24 grinders, four eye teeth or tushes, and 12 incisive teeth. Mares have no eye teeth, or if they have them they are very short; it is from the front and eye teeth alone we are enabled to form any judgment of their age. The front teeth begin to shew themselves a few days after the birth of the foal, these first teeth are round, short, and not very solid; they drop out at different times to make room for others. At two years and a half the four front middle teeth drop out, two at top, and two at bottom; a year after four others fall out, one on each side of the first, which are already replaced; At four years and a half, four others drop out, always on each side of those which have been shed and replaced; these four last milk teeth are replaced by four others, which do not grow near so last as those which replaced the first eight; and these four last teeth which are called the wedges, or corner teeth, as those by which the age of a horse is distinguished; these are easily known, since they are the third, as well at top as at bottom, beginning to count from the middle of the extremity of the jaw; these teeth are hollow, and have a black mark in their cavities. At four years and a half, or five years old, they scarcely project beyond the gums, and their cavities are plainly seen. At six years and a half they begin to fill up, the mark also begins to diminish gradually, till he comes to seven years and a half, or eight years, when the hollow is entirely filled up and the black mark effaced. After the animal has attained this period, it is common to attempt to judge of his age by the eye teeth, or tusks; these four teeth are placed at the side of those which we have just described. Neither the eye teeth, nor grinders, are preceded by others which fall out. Those of the interior jaw usually begin to shoot at three years and a half, the two of the upper jaw at the age of four, and till the animal is six years old they are very sharp; at ten years old the upper ones appear already blunt, worn, and long, because the gum wears away with age, and the more it appears worn away, the more aged is the horse. From 10 till 13 or 14 years, there is hardly any indication of the age; when some of the hairs on the eye-brows begin to grow white; but this indication is equivocal, since it has been remarked that horses engendered from old stallions and old mares have the hair white on the eye-brows by the age of 10 years. There are also horses whose teeth are so hard that they do not wear, and upon which the black mark subsists and is never effaced; but these are easily known by the length of the eye teeth. We may also know, though with less precision, the age of a horse by the ridges of the palate, which are effaced in proportion to his age.