SENSE OF SIGHT. 21 



They are, in the horse, his most expressive feature, and 

 consequently he draws conclusions principally, in this re- 

 spect, from the nature of their movements. That, under 

 ordinary circumstances, an animal's ideas on facial ex- 

 pression are chiefly, if not wholly, derived from his studies 

 on that subject among individuals of his own species. 

 The mouth of the horse, as well as his ears, is capable 

 of expressing his feelings to some extent ; but it differs 

 so much from that of man in its position on the face, in 

 its power of laying bare the teeth, and in the mobility 

 and size of the upper lip, that our possession of a mouth is 

 a fact of which the horse is possibly unaware. In any case, 

 its expression is nearly, if not quite, meaningless to him. 

 With our organs of vision, the most threatening action is 

 that of knitting the eyebrows ; with those of the horse, 

 that of " showing the white of the eye." As we habitually 

 do the latter, but in a way different to that of the horse, 

 and as the horse is practically incapable of the former ; 

 it is reasonable to suppose that the play of our eyes would 

 be lost on him. The power of expression of a dog's features 

 resembles that of man to a certain extent. I have seen 

 dogs smile, wrinkle the skin on their noses when doing 

 so, in a manner not very unlike that by which some persons 

 show their pleasure at meeting an agreeable acquaintance. 

 We all know that a dog makes a special study of the ex- 

 pression of his master's face. 



Sense of feeling and smell. Although the horse's sense 

 of smell is acute, I have not observed that he, like the dog, 

 uses it to recognise persons. I certainly think that, when 

 a horse brings his muzzle up to anything he may wish to 

 examine, he does so with the object of using it more as an 

 organ of touch, than to smell the object in question. As a 

 rule, a horse which is in a doubtful mood with respect to a 

 person who wishes to approach him, will, as every horse- 



