244 Next to the Ground 



because of their own airs and tempers, also 

 when it is the vent of uncontrolled nerves, 

 savage tremors, or suppressed rage provoked 

 in other quarters. And they have very long 

 memories. Indeed they have throughout an 

 almighty lot of human nature. They have a 

 language, intelligible between themselves, and 

 also to those persons they admit to anything 

 like intimacy. They are moreover social, 

 something waggish and tremendously conven- 

 tional. 



There is something infinitely pathetic in the 

 neighing of a solitary horse. It is long, shrill, 

 oft-repeated, rising at the end to a keen trem- 

 ulous crescendo, full of appeal. The neigh 

 of welcome, on the other hand, either to a 

 comrade, chance or well-known, or to the 

 home gate, or the stall, is almost merry, full 

 of chuckling cadences, altogether a voicing of 

 content. A horse used to company, left alone 

 either in the stall or at grass, neighs almost 

 continuously for ten minutes, then waits a bit, 

 listening for possible answers. At pasture, 

 jumping-out is likely. A mare's mating call 

 is a keen, thin, tremulous treble, the most 

 piercing note in all the spring chorus. The 

 stallion's is deep and virile, clear, yet touched 

 at bottom with a growlingbass. The gelding's 

 neigh is clearest of all. Horse voices vary 

 almost as much as human voices do. When 



