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Show 130 SPECIAL EXPRESSIONS ! CHAP. V. back, protrude their heads, and partia11y uncover their incisor teeth, ready for biting. When inclined to kic~ behind, they generally, through habit, draw back their ears ; and their eyes are turned backwards in a peculiar manner. 8 When pleased, as when some coveted food is brought to them in the stable, they raise and draw in their heads, prick their ears, and looking intently towards their friend, often whinny. Impa-tience is expressed . by pawing the ground. . The actions of a horse when much startled are highly expressive. One day my horse was much frightened at a drilling machine, covered by a tarpaulin, and lying on an open field. He raised his head so high, that his neck became almost perpendicular ; and this he did from habit, for the machine lay on a slope below, and could not have been seen with more distinctness through the raising of the head; nor if any sound had proceeded from it, could the sound have been more distinctly heard. His eyes and ears were directed intently forwards; and I could feel through the saddle the palpitations of his heart. With red dilated nostrils he snorted violently, and whirling round, would havo dashed off at full speed, had I not prevented him. The distension of the nostrils is not for the sake of scenting the source of danger, for when a horse smells carefully at any object and is not alarmed, he does not dilate his nostrils. Owing to the presence of a valve in the throat, a horse when panting does not breathe through his open mouth, but through his nostrils ; and these consequently have become endowed with great powers of expansion. This expansion of the nostrils as well as the snorting, and the palpitations of the s Sir C. Bell, • Anatomy of Expressi(Jn,' 8rd edit. p. 123. See also p. 126, on horses not breathing through their mouths, with l'eference to their distended nostrils. CHAP. v. , nUMINANTS. 131 heart, are actions which have become firmly associated during a long series of generations with the emotion of terror; for terror has habitually led the horse to the most violent exertion in dashing away at full speed from tho cause of danger. Ruminants.-Oattle and, sheep are remarkable from displaying in so slight a degree their emotions or sensations, excepting that of extreme pain. A bull when enraged exhibits his rage only by the manner in which he holds his lowered head, with distended nostrils, and by bellowing. He also often paws the ground; but this pawing seems quite different from that of an impatient horse, for when the soil is loose, he throws up clouds of dust. I believe that bulls act in this manner when irritated by flies, for the sake of driving them away. The wilder breeds of sheep and the chamois when startled stamp on the ground, and whistle through their noses ; and this serves as a dangersignal to their comrades. The musk-ox of the Arctic regions, when encountered, likewise stamps on the ground. 9 · How this stamping action arose I cannot conjecture; for from inquiries which I have made, it does not appear that any of these animals fight with their fore-legs. · Some species of deer, when savage, display far more expression than do cattle, sheep; or goats, for, as has already been stated, they draw back their ears, grind their teeth, erect their hair, squeal, stamp on the ground, and brandish their horns. One day in the Zoological Gardens, the Formosan deer ( Oervus pseudaxis) approached me in a curious attitude, with his muzzle raised high up, so that the horns were pressed back 0 ' Land and Water,' 1869, p. 152. K2 |