Page 226.
Screaming or weeping begins to be voluntarily restrained at an early period of life, whereas frowning is hardly ever restrained at any age. It is perhaps worth notice that, with children much given to weeping, anything which perplexes their minds, and which would cause most other children merely to frown, readily makes them weep. So with certain classes of the insane, any effort of mind, however slight, which with an habitual frowner would cause a slight frown, leads to their weeping in an unrestrained manner. It is not more surprising that the habit of contracting the brows at the first perception of something distressing, although gained during infancy, should be retained during the rest of our lives, than that many other associated habits acquired at an early age should be permanently retained both by man and the lower animals. For instance, full-grown cats, when feeling warm and comfortable, often retain the habit of alternately protruding their fore-feet with extended toes, which habit they practiced for a definite purpose while sucking their mothers.
POUTING.
Page 232.
With young children sulkiness is shown by pouting, or, as it is sometimes called, “making a snout.” When the corners of the mouth are much depressed, the lower lip is a little everted and protruded; and this is likewise called a pout. But the pouting here referred to consists of the protrusion of both lips into a tubular form, sometimes to such an extent as to project as far as the end of the nose, if this be short. Pouting is generally accompanied by frowning, and sometimes by the utterance of a booing or whooing noise. This expression is remarkable, as almost the sole one, as far as I know, which is exhibited much more plainly during childhood, at least with Europeans, than during maturity. There is, however, some tendency to the protrusion of the lips with the adults of all races under the influence of great rage. Some children pout when they are shy, and they can then hardly be called sulky.
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Page 234.
Young orangs and chimpanzees protrude their lips to an extraordinary degree, when they are discontented, somewhat angry, or sulky; also when they are surprised, a little frightened, and even when slightly pleased. Their mouths are protruded apparently for the sake of making the various noises proper to these several states of mind; and its shape, as I observed with the chimpanzee, differed slightly when the cry of pleasure and that of anger were uttered. As soon as these animals become enraged, the shape of the mouth wholly changes, and the teeth are exposed. The adult orang when wounded is said to emit “a singular cry, consisting at first of high notes, which at length deepen into a low roar. While giving out the high notes he thrusts out his lips into a funnel shape, but in uttering the low notes he holds his mouth wide open.” With the gorilla, the lower lip is said to be capable of great elongation. If, then, our semi-human progenitors protruded their lips when sulky or a little angered, in the same manner as do the existing anthropoid apes, it is not an anomalous, though a curious fact, that our children should exhibit, when similarly affected, a trace of the same expression, together with some tendency to utter a noise. For it is not at all unusual for animals to retain, more or less perfectly, during early youth, and subsequently to lose, characters which were aboriginally possessed by their adult progenitors, and which are still retained by distinct species, their near relations.
DECISION AT THE MOUTH.
Page 236.