1 68 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE. 



destined to carry weight and to undergo rapid and continued 

 exertion a combination not existing in any other quadruped 

 to anything like the same degree, and fitting him precisely 

 for the purposes for which he was given to man. At present 

 we have said nothing about his head, every part of which is 

 equally characteristic. His well-shaped, delicate ears are 

 capable of being moved separately in every direction, and 

 every movement is full of meaning and in sympathy with 

 the eye. The eye is prominent, full, and large, and placed 

 laterally, so that he can see behind him without turning his 

 head, his heels being his principal weapon of defence; his 

 nostrils are large, open and flexible, and his lips fleshy, 

 though thin, and exquisitely mobile and sensitive. The large, 

 open nostril is essential to him, as a horse breathes solely 

 and entirely through it, being physically incapable of breath- 

 ing through his mouth, as a valve in the throat actually 

 precludes him from so doing; hence the mouth of a horse, 

 without a bridle in it, is opened only for purposes of eating 

 or biting, but never from excitement or from exhaustion, like 

 that of most other quadrupeds, except the deer species. The 

 lips are, perhaps, even more characteristic; they are his 

 hands as well as part of his mouth, and the horse and 

 others of his family alone use them in this way. The ox, 

 the sheep, the goat, the deer, the giraffe above all, and, in 

 fact, we believe all graminivorous animals except the horse, 

 either bite their food directly with the teeth, or grasp and 

 gather it with the tongue, which is prehensile, and gifted 

 with more or less power of prolongation; but the horse's 

 tongue has no such function, and, therefore, no such powers, 

 as these services are all performed in his case by the lips : 

 and no horseman, who has let a favourite horse pick up 

 small articles of food from the palm of his hand, can have 

 failed to be struck with the extreme mobility, and also the 

 sensibility and delicacy of touch, with which the lips are 

 endowed." 



