side, I find that the natives in snarling at each other speak with the
teeth closed, the upper lip drawn to one side, and a general angry
expression of face; but they look direct at the person addressed.
Three other observers in Australia, one in Abyssinia, and one in China,
answer my query on this head in the affirmative; but as the expression
is rare, and as they enter into no details, I am afraid of implicitly
trusting them. It is, however, by no means improbable that this
animal-like expression may be more common with savages than with
civilized races. Mr. Geach is an observer who may be fully trusted, and
he has observed it on one occasion in a Malay in the interior of
Malacca. The Rev. S. O. Glenie answers, We have observed this
expression with the natives of Ceylon, but not often. Lastly, in North
America, Dr. Rothrock has seen it with some wild Indians, and often in
a tribe adjoining the Atnahs.
Although the upper lip is certainly sometimes raised on one side alone
in sneering at or defying any one, I do not know that this is always
the case, for the face is commonly half averted, and the expression is
often momentary. The movement being confined to one side may not be an
essential part of the expression, but may depend on the proper muscles
being incapable of movement excepting on one side. I asked four persons
to endeavour to act voluntarily in this manner; two could expose the
canine only on the left side, one only on the right side, and the
fourth on neither side. Nevertheless it is by no means certain that
these same persons, if defying any one in earnest, would not
unconsciously have uncovered their canine tooth on the side, whichever
it might be, towards the offender. For we have seen that some persons
cannot voluntarily make their eyebrows oblique, yet instantly act in
this manner when affected by any real, although most trifling, cause of
distress. The power of voluntarily uncovering the canine on one side of
the face being thus often wholly lost, indicates that it is a rarely
used and almost abortive action. It is indeed a surprising fact that
man should possess the power, or should exhibit any tendency to its
use; for Mr. Sutton has never noticed a snarling action in our nearest
allies, namely, the monkeys in the Zoological Gardens, and he is
positive that the baboons, though furnished with great canines, never
act thus, but uncover all their teeth when feeling savage and ready for
an attack. Whether the adult anthropomorphous apes, in the males of
whom the canines are much larger than in the females, uncover them when
prepared to fight, is not known.
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