DOGS ON THE HIGHWAY 235 



a pack of hounds on a railway line, even if they are 

 not in full cry, are always cut to pieces by the first 

 fast train which overtakes them. The first thing 

 which the driver does when he sees them is to shut 

 off steam. This makes the engine noiseless, but the 

 whole train rushes on, plainly visible, but with 

 absolutely no terror for hounds, who seem to look 

 on the swift, silent thing as perfectly harmless. If 

 it were a corn waggon or a puffing traction-engine 

 they would get out of the way. When the short 

 line of railway was made across the neck of the 

 Dobrudscha in Turkey, from Kustendji to the 

 Danube, the Turks were almost as stupid. They 

 seemed unable to realise that the train would not 

 stop, and would drive their sheep along the line, 

 while one man endeavoured to stop a runaway truck 

 by putting his foot on the rail. 



Birds, perhaps from their own power of speed, 

 more probably from their quicker brains and powers 

 of observation, do thoroughly realise the speed of 

 trains. Instances in which they have been killed by 

 a passing engine are very rare, though partridges and 

 grouse rising suddenly in front of a train often fly 

 against the telegraph wires. That this is acquired 

 knowledge, though probably transmitted now from 

 generation to generation, and that birds were possibly 

 killed by trains or incommoded by them in the early 

 days of the railway, seems evident from the following 

 facts. The invention of the " torpedo-boat destroyer " 

 raised the maximum speed obtained at sea at a jump 

 from twenty-five to thirty-one knots. The speed of 



