Through the emotions we are apt to judge ourselves somewhat superior to the animal creation, though perhaps a more thorough study and interest in the “smiles and tears” of the so-called creatures of lesser intelligence would teach us that the emotions play almost as important and distinctive a part in their organism as in our own oversensitive nerve force. I am not speaking of the emotion of fear and anger that is instinctive in all animals, but of the more subtle emotions of joy and grief as visibly expressed. The older epic writers made much of the grief expressed by horses, and their sorrows have formed many an heroic verse. Merrick, in his “Tryphiodorus,” says: He stands, and careless of his golden grain, Weeps his associates and his master slain. Says Moschus: Nothing is heard upon the mountains now But pensive herds that for their master low, Struggling and comfortless about they rove, Unmindful of their pasture and their love. Virgil, who was probably more conversant with the horse and his interests than almost any other writer of that faraway period, thus writes of the sorrow of Pallas’ steed: To close the pomp, Aethon, the steed of state, Is led, the funeral of his lord to wait; Stripp’d of his trappings, with a sullen pace He walks, and the big tears run rolling down his face. In the Iliad, Homer thus renders the emotion of Patroclus’ war horses evinced for that hero: Restive they stood, and obstinate in woe: Still as a tombstone, never to be moved On some good man or woman unreproved Lays its eternal weight; or fix’d, as stands A marble courser by the sculptor’s hands. Placed on the hero’s grave. Along their face The big round drops coursed down with silent pace, Conglobing with the dust. Their manes, that late Circled their arched necks, and waved in state, Trail’d on the dust beneath the yoke were spread, And prone to earth was hung their languid head. Shakespeare, in “As You Like It,” tells of the tears shed by a wounded stag: The wretched animal heav’d forth such groans, That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat Almost to bursting; and the big round tears Cours’d one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase. All, or nearly all, animals are sensitive to music, which affects them in various ways, and again it is Shakespeare who refers to this sensitiveness in even untrained horses, proving its effect to be instinctive: For do but note a wild and wanton herd Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, Fetching mad? bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud, Which is the hot condition of their blood If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eye turned to a modest gaze By the sweet power of music.