168 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

destined to carry weight and to undergo rapid and continued
axertion—a combination not existing in any other quadruped
to anything like the same degree, and fitting him precisely
for the purposes for which he was given to man. At present
we have said nothing about his head, every part of which is
equally characteristic. His well-shaped, delicate ears are
capable of being moved separately in every direction, and
every movement is full of meaning and in sympathy with
the eye. The eye is prominent, full, and large, and placed
laterally, so that he can see behind him without turning his
head, his heels being his principal weapon of defence; his
nostrils are large, open and flexible, and his lips fleshy,
though thin, and exquisitely mobile and sensitive. The large,
open nostril is essential to him, as a horse breathes solely
and entirely through it, being physically incapable of breath-
ing through his mouth, as a valve in the throat actually
precludes him from so doing; hence the mouth of a horse,
without a bridle in it, is opened only for purposes of eating
or biting, but never from excitement or from exhaustion, like
that of most other quadrupeds, except the deer species. The
lips are, perhaps, even more characteristic; they are his
hands as well as part of his mouth, and the horse and
others of his family alone use them in this way. The ox,
the sheep, the goat, the deer, the giraffe above all, and, in
fact, we believe all graminivorous animals except the horse,
either bite their food directly with the teeth, or grasp and
gather it with the tongue, which is prehensile, and gifted
with more or less power of prolongation; but the horse’s
tongue has no such function, and, therefore, no such powers,
as these services are all performed in his case by the lips :
and no horseman, who has let a favourite horse pick up
small articles of food from the palm of his hand, can have
failed to be struck with the extreme mobility, and also the
sensibility and delicacy of touch, with which the lips are
endowed,”