36 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



are paths worn on the prairie, nearly all running due 

 north and south (the line of the old migration of the 

 herds), like gigantic rabbit-tracks. They are hard, 

 the grass on them is green and short, and, if followed, 

 they generally lead near water, to which a diverging 

 track runs from the highway. 



It is pleasant to reconstruct in fancy the life on 

 this great animal highway, before the Indian invented 

 the arrow to destroy and torment the moving tribes 

 of beasts. Doubtless, in their unresponsive way, the 

 creatures felt the usual emotions of travellers on a 

 known and pleasant road, looked forward to their 

 halts for food or d6tours for water and bathing, and 

 recognised or longed for pastures and retreats which 

 they had visited yearly as their manes grew shaggier 

 and their frames more ponderous and robust. 



With the sheep-tracks and the buffalo and musk-ox 

 trails may be compared the main roads used by very 

 many graminivorous animals, from those which the 

 hippopotamus cuts through the gigantic reeds fringing 

 African rivers to the hare and rabbit highways on our 

 downs. The main roads of the hares over hills are 

 almost as permanent as the sheep-tracks, and must 

 not be confused with their paths to temporary feeding- 

 places or the shelter of crops. In the same way the 

 regular step terraces on the sides of chalk downs, 

 though often made by sheep, are not roads, but 

 feeding-places. As a sheep walks on a steep slope 

 it always grazes on the ground on the side above it. 

 Its neck would not reach that on the lower side. 

 Consequently sheep work backwards and forwards on 



