SENSE OF SIGHT. 23 



have made many experiments on young and old horses, 

 and can certify that if the man moves only his eyes and 

 the muscles of his face, without stirring his body or arms 

 the horse will remain perfectly unconcerned. I have a 

 hundred times tried the effect of anger in my look, of smiles 

 on my lips, without the slightest result. You may make 

 the most horrible grimaces at your horses, or you may 

 stick your tongue out at them, but none of them will show 

 the smallest sign of being influenced by such means " 

 {Fillis). The reason for the horse being insensible to the 

 expression of the human face, however exaggerated it may 

 be, although keenly observant of the slightest movement 

 of the hand, for instance, appears to me to be that the 

 special feature which the horse looks at, as an index to the 

 mind, is the ears, which in man are too small and too little 

 gifted with mobility to afford him any clue to our thoughts 

 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. I need hardly 

 say that, under ordinary circumstances, an animal's ideas 

 on facial expression 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 



