In a military camp I asked some women to tea, and turned loose a few Beethoven records on the gramaphone. At the first tune all the horses in pasture assembled at the fence, stood to attention while the music lasted, and when it was over scattered off to grass. They certainly love music. At the same camp, by {89} some mysterious means they got wind of the fact that twenty of them were to be sent away. Until the detachment actually marched off, their conduct, for twenty-four hours on end, was sulky and mutinous. Afterwards both groups immediately mended their manners. [Sidenote: Signals] Everybody who lives with horses learns that they exchange confidences, arrange for concerted action and try to tell us their troubles. Nobody knows how they talk, few of us can tell what they are talking about, but so far as the evidence goes they seem to express their feelings rather than their thoughts. Here then are a few of their signals: (1) When a horse throws his ears to point forward and down, and he makes a short, sharp snort it means "Wheugh! Look at that now!" If he throws himself back on his haunches while he points and snorts, it means: "Oh, Hell!" If he points, snorts and shies a few yards sideways in the air, he is playing at being in a terrible fright. It means: "Bears!" He is not really frightened, for when he is tired out he will pass a railway engine blowing off steam without taking the slightest notice. (2) One ear lopped forward and the other back, head sideways, gait sidelong, may be {90} defined in the words of a learned Hindu: "Sir, the horse with which your Honour entrusted me has been behaving in a highly obstreperous and devil-may-care manner." [Sidenote: Horse speech] (3) The love call is a little whinney, soft, sweet and low. (4) The demand for food is a rumbling neigh. (5) A cheery neigh greeting other horses in passing means: "How d'ye do!" (6) A loud trumpet peal of neighing at short intervals is a demand, sometimes a piteous appeal to other horses to join company. (7) The groan of great pain is the same as that of a man, and may be attended by crying, when tears run from the nostrils. The sound is heart-rending, beyond endurance. (8) The scream is only uttered in sudden and mortal agony as from burning, or from some kinds of wounds received in battle. [Sidenote: Signs and protests] (9) Ears thrown back even ever so slightly express anger, but thrown back along the neck mean fighting rage. In wild life the fights between stallions are mainly with the teeth, and horses forced to fight as a sport for men, as in ancient Iceland, rear up against one another, striking as well as biting. The ears are thrown back to save them from being bitten. {91} (10) Rage and pretended anger are expressed by a sudden squeal, the signal of attack. (11) Gestures of pain. Stamping is merely impatience.