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The mouth of the lamb newly dropped is either without incisor teeth, or it has two. The teeth rapidly succeed to each other, and before the animal is a month old he has the whole of the eight. They continue to grow with his growth until he is about fourteen or sixteen months old.

Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3.

Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6.

In the accompanying cut, fig. 1 will give a fair representation of the mouth of a sheep at this age. Then, with the same previous process of diminution which was described in cattle, or carried to a still greater degree, the two central teeth are shed, and attain their full growth when the slieep is two years old. Fig. 2 gives a delineation of the mouth at this age.

In examining a flock of sheep, however, there will often be very considerable difference in the teeth of the hogs, or the one-shears; in some measure to be accounted for by a difference in the time of lambing, and likewise by the general health and vigour of the animal. There will also be a material difference in different flocks, attributable to the good or bad keep which they have had.

Those fed on good land, or otherwise well kept, will take the start of others that have been half-starved, and renew their teeth some months sooner than these. There are, however, exceptions to this; Mr. Price^[1] says that a Romney Marsh teg was exhibited at the show fair at Ashford, weighing 15 stones^[2], and the largest ever shown there of that breed, and that had not one of his permanent broad teeth.

There are also irregularities in the times of renewing the teeth, not to be accounted for by either of these circumstances; in fact, not to be accounted for by any known circumstance relating to the breed or the keep of the sheep. The same author remarks, that he has known tups have four broad and permanent teeth, when, according to their age, they ought to have had but two ^[3]. Mr. Culley, in his excellent work on 'Live Stock,' says—"A friend of mine and an eminent breeder, Mr. Charge, of Cleashy, a few years ago showed a shearing-tup at Richmond, in Yorkshire, for the premium given by the Agricultural Society there, which had six broad teeth; in consequence of which the judges rejected his tup, although confessedly the best sheep, because they believed him to be more than a shearing: however, Mr. Charge afterwards proved to their satisfaction that his tup was no more than a shearing^[4]." Mr. Price, on the other hand, states that he "once saw a yearling wether, which became quite fat with only one tooth, that had worked a cavity in the upper jaw, the corresponding central tooth having been accidentally lost."