Bright eyes, a glossy coat, head carried proudly, and tail high, dry nostrils, hard droppings, free movement, and a willing gait are signs most eloquent of health. To pass the time of day with other horses, shy at the clouds, paw the moon, and dance, with pig jumping or even a little bucking after breakfast, are signals of youth, joy and good fellowship.
Then one may watch the play of the nostrils making a thousand comments on scents borne in the air, while the ears will point and quiver to all sorts of sounds beyond man's hearing. The mood will change from sober thoughtfulness in the shadow of clouds or trees, to sheer intoxication of delight with sparkling frost, dew on the flowers, sunshine in the skies. No creature on earth expresses feeling with sweeter quickness than a happy horse.
(13) Nuzzling is sometimes an appeal for help, more often an expression of loving sympathy.
Thought transference
(14) Nothing so far explains how a couple of horses will put their heads together, touch nostrils, and in a second come to some sort of mutual understanding, which leads to immediate concerted action such as the bolting of a team. In one or two cases I am not sure that the nostrils actually touched. In many cases when I saw nostrils rubbed together or the beard bristles in contact, no sound was made within the compass of my hearing. Neither were there such lip movements as would be made by speech, nor was there any self-conscious, found-out expression in the faces of conspirators caught plotting against the white men.
When I have been in company with some very dear friend, and one of us would answer out loud to an unspoken thought of the other, or both of us were moved to say the same thing in the like words, we called that thought-transference. When my horse came to me in camp, and standing behind caressed my neck or ear with his lips or nostril trying by thought-transference to tell me all about his pain or sorrow, he might get his face slapped before I realised exactly what he said. Only as I learned to welcome horses when they came to me, I seemed to sense their feelings. They converse among themselves by thought-transference, and try to speak that way to men they trust.
Thought transference
The barriers between horse and man are tremendous. Think what it is for a fastidious creature, with powers of scenting which can descry clean standing water at nearly five miles without wind, to come near a meat-eating creature like a man, powerfully and offensively scented. Suffering from nausea without obtaining the relief permitted to a man, the horse must overcome an intense dislike before he accepts our friendship. He senses our defects of cowardice, cruelty or selfishness, perhaps drunkenness, vices out-ranging his capacity for evil. He knows that we are physically small, slow, sometimes even lacking in muscular strength. Yet taking us all in good part, he submits his will to an intellectual force, grasp and speed which seem to him supernatural, and to an authority which he venerates as divine.