A BOG'S LAUGH. 



89 



pressed in the epitaph on a tablet in Westminster Abbey. It 

 reads as follows : " He was ardently attached to science ; he la- 

 bored to add to the knowledge and enrich the museums of his 

 native land.'' 







A DOG'S LAUGH. 



Br M. LE VICOMTE D'ATGLUN. 



ALPHONSE KARR has said : " Man is the gayest of animals ; 

 - much more, he is the only gay one, the only one that 

 laughs." Toussenel is equally explicit : " Laughter is a charac- 

 teristic faculty of man." Gratiolet observes that "when man 

 freely breathes a pure air, fresh and uncontaminated, his mouth 

 dilates slightly, his upper lip reveals more or less of his upper 

 front teeth, and the corners of the mouth gracefully elevate them- 

 selves; the muscles that de- 

 termine this movement act at 

 the same time upon his cheeks 

 and raise them, slightly lift- 

 ing the outer angles of his 

 eyes, which become a little 

 oblique. This movement of 

 easy respiration is called the 

 smile; and the smile of the 

 lips is distinguished in lan- 

 guage from the smile of the 

 eyes. The smile of the eyes 

 is in man, however, consecu- 

 tive to the service of the 

 mouth, and does not depend 

 upon any special muscle. No 

 mammalian animal has the 

 smile of the mouth ; but the 

 smile of the eyes exists in the 

 carnivorous animals, and, as 

 it can not depend upon the 

 buccal smile, its determining cause resides in a small muscle that 

 acts on the outer angle of the eye. Dogs, it is known, have this 

 smile of the eyes in a superior degree." * Further, he says : " The 

 real and simple smile that is, the movement that lifts the angle 

 of the mouth is exclusively peculiar to the human species. There 

 is nothing like it even in the highest monkeys. Among the car- 

 nivores, animals of the genera Ursus (bear), Canis (dog), and 



Fig. 1. Fox Terrier Laughing. 

 From a photograph. 



* Gratiolet. De la Physionomie, p. 25. 



