Mr. Dyson Lacy has seen this grinning expression with the Australians,
when quarrelling, and so has Gaika with the Kafirs of South America.
Dickens,[10] in speaking of an atrocious murderer who had just been caught,
and was surrounded by a furious mob, describes "the people as jumping
up one behind another, snarling with their teeth, and making at him
like wild beasts." Every one who has had much to do with young children
must have seen how naturally they take to biting, when in a passion.
It seems as instinctive in them as in young crocodiles, who snap their
little jaws as soon as they emerge from the egg.
[9] Sir C. Bell, `Anatomy of Expression,' p. 177. Gratiolet (De
la Phys. p. 369) says, `les dents se decouvrent, et imitent
symboliquement l'action de dechirer et de mordre.'I If,
instead of using the vague term _symboliquement_, Gratiolet had
said that the action was a remnant of a habit acquired during
primeval times when our semi-human progenitors fought together
with their teeth, like gorillas and orangs at the present day,
he would have been more intelligible. Dr. Piderit (`Mimik,' &c., s.
82) also speaks of the retraction of the upper lip during rage.
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