An ass in covering will impregnate more
expeditiously than a stallion. The act of intercourse with horses is
not laborious as it is with oxen. In both sexes the horse is the
most salacious of animals next after the human species. The breeding
faculties of the younger horses may be stimulated beyond their years
if they be supplied with good feeding in abundance. The mare as a rule
bears only one foal; occasionally she has two, but never more. A
mare has been known to cast two mules; but such a circumstance was
regarded as unnatural and portentous.
The horse then is first fitted for breeding purposes at the
age of two and a half years, but achieves full sexual maturity when it
has ceased to shed teeth, except it be naturally infertile; it must be
added, however, that some horses have been known to impregnate the
mare while the teeth were in process of shedding.
The horse has forty teeth. It sheds its first set of four, two
from the upper jaw and two from the lower, when two and a half years
old. After a year's interval, it sheds another set of four in like
manner, and another set of four after yet another year's interval;
after arriving at the age of four years and six months it sheds no
more.
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