HABIT OF SMELLING. 23 



been looking at it all the while), he seems to have an 

 idea what it is. But now he has found, by the sense 

 of feeling, that it is nothing that will do him any 

 harm, and he is ready to play with it. And if you 

 watch him closely, you will see him take hold of it 

 with his teeth, and raise it up and pull at it. And 

 in a few minutes you can see that he has not that 

 same wild look about his eye, but stands like a horse 

 biting at some familiar stump. 



Yet the horse is never so well satisfied when he is 

 about anything that has frightened him, as when he 

 is standing with his nose to it. And, in nine cases 

 out of ten, you will see some of that same wild look 

 about him again, as he turns to walk from it. And 

 you will, probably, see him looking back very sus- 

 piciously as he walks away, as though he thought it 

 might come after him yet. And in all probability, 

 he will have to go back and make another examin- 

 ation before he is satisfied. But he will familiarize 

 himself with it, and, if he should run in that lot a 

 few days, the robe that frightened him so much at 

 first will be no more to him than a familiar stump. 



SUGGESTIONS ON THE HABIT OF SMELLING. 



We might very naturally suppose from the fact of 

 the horse's applying his nose to everything new to 

 him, that he always does so for the purpose of smell- 

 ing these objects. But I believe that it is as much 

 or more for the purpose of feeling, and that he makes 



