And so one might set forth instances by the score, all to the same monotonous effect, that humans and horses have a sense of humour.
Limitations and tricks
Please imagine a man to have his hands and feet replaced by boxes of horn such as the hoofs of a horse, and that, so disabled, he is tied by the head in a cell. Reduced to the conditions of horse-life in a stable, the man would be as clever as a horse in the use of lips and teeth. He would slip his headstall or break his head-rope, open the door and escape until such time as the need for food and water drove him back to prison. When asked to go to work, he might give a clever impersonation of a lame horse. He might also copy the trick of the beggar horse who gives the love call to every man who enters the stable, fooling each of them with the flattery of special homage, a sure way to gifts of sugar, apples or carrots. Or he might copy the horse who whiles away dull times by keeping a pet cat, or bird, or puppy. It seems odd, too, that the most dangerous human outlaws and man-slaying horses are gentle with small animals and children. So long as we punish unoffending horses with imprisonment in dark cells, we may expect them to show traits of character evolved by the treatment of prisoners in the Middle Ages.
Horses, dogs, and men are oddly alike, too, in the way they dream, with twitchings of the limbs to illustrate great exertion, and snortings, murmurs and groans, which take the place of speech.
So horses just like humans are dour or cheery, truculent or cheeky, humorous or stolid, some with a lofty sense of dignity, while others behave like clowns. Some horses are like some children, exacting until they are petted, while other children and horses hate to be pawed. Both will sulk or quarrel, play the fool or grumble, make intimate friendships or bitter enemies. I think, though, that the love of sport, and the desire to excel are much more general with horses than with children.
The horse musical
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 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.
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.