DOGS ON THE HIGHWAY 237 



the streets, is often cut to pieces. Even a single 

 wire, newly put up, is very destructive, until the birds 

 have learnt caution. One recently erected near Cam- 

 bridge led to the discovery of a permanent " short cut " 

 used by migrant birds from Cambridgeshire to the 

 Thames mouth, their bodies being discovered beneath 

 the wire, though, as they fly by night, their passage 

 had escaped observation. 



The nervous fear of new inventions, which makes 

 animals afraid where fear is unnecessary, is much 

 sooner unlearnt than the proper degree of caution is 

 learnt. Horses, for instance, are practically indifferent 

 to the sight of a railway train, and cattle which had 

 travelled by rail, as Charles Dickens early noticed in the 

 fields north of London, very soon learnt to disregard 

 the steam-engine. 



Motor-cars of any description are, of course, more 

 alarming to them, for they meet them at much closer 

 quarters, and a carriage which apparently goes along 

 of its own accord naturally strikes them as uncanny. 

 But they are rapidly growing used to even these, and 

 whereas a few years ago motoring was a very question- 

 able pleasure to any lover of horses, on account of the 

 terror which a car produced in half the equine popu- 

 lation, most of them are now perfectly indifferent, and 

 it is possible to motor hundreds of miles without 

 alarming a single horse. 



