The Horse 245 



they call one to another about the pasture, it 

 is no feat at all for one who knows, to locate 

 each by the call. Under pain horses are stoic. 

 But if the pain reaches the height of mortal 

 agony they scream pitifully, heartrendingly. 

 Indeed a horse's scream, eitherof agony or rage, 

 is a haunting and memorable sound. 



A neigh is in most minds the same thing 

 as a whinny — in Tennessee vernacular, 

 a whicker — yet there can scarcely be two 

 sounds more distinct. The neigh rises through- 

 out until it is ear-piercing as a trumpet-note 

 at the climax. The whinny is soft, almost 

 gurgling, loudest at the beginning, and at the 

 end a flickering, husky tremolo. Possibly the 

 difference is best expressed thus : the neigh 

 is articulate, uttered through an open mouth, 

 and varied or prolonged to the limit of breath ; 

 the whinny is inarticulate, coming out of 

 the nose above shut lips, and blurred after the 

 manner of nasal sound. As the whinny is 

 provincially a whicker, so is the neigh a nicker. 

 In both cases the words are palpably efforts to 

 imitate the sound. 



Brood mares whinny calls to their foals 

 when the youngsters are in plain sight, and 

 neigh to them when they have wandered afar, 

 or are in hiding. Nine tenths of foals are 

 dropped between mid-April and mid-June. 

 A horse's age is reckoned unofficially by 



