Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-12-02
FIND RAILROAD USEFUL.
Wild Animals Accommodate Them
selves to Circumstances.

Niii'lals accommodate themselves in
many ways to the altered conditions of
life when human beings trespass upon
their wild haunts. The coming of tie
railway into the savage countries has
peen followed by the development of a
real railway fauna, composed of a wide
variety of birds and beasts that find
their living along the tracks
Perhaps there is no more remarkable
instance of this known than that report
ed by a distinguished scientist who spent
some time in northwestern Canada
studying the forms If snow and snow
waves. lie found that the wo!ve; and
coyotes. which foln NY followed herds
of buffalo OF camps of travellers across
the prairies. picking OFF stray animals
and getting the refuse from the camps
had become modelniZed into hangers-on
of the railway companies.
Every through continental train car
ried one or more dining cars, in which
is produced much waste which is thrown
out at the cleanin2-up time after each
meal This the animals learned, and
they haunt the line in localities where
the garbage is usually thrown out. to
get the broken bread, bones and trim
mings.
Sometimes gray wolf will be Seeu
the very personfication of cold and
famine. sitting by sage bush in the
drift of snow powder lifted up by the
icy morning wind, his sharp nose sharp
~ upifted, the cutting blast lutfiing the
fur on his back. waiting for the sun to
warm him and the dining car to bring
him beef bone for breakfast.
On the Siberian railroad iackals and
foxes follow the through trains for the
same purpose.
In England there are many instances
of the country where every morning the
foxes hunt along the Railway beneath the
telegraph line, seeking the birds that
have been killed in the night or early
morning. A great number of small birds
of many sorts meet their death every day
by striking against the wires, and Il fox
dom goes hungry.
On the Isle of Wight, in at least one
location where the railway passes along
the shore, the company has been forced
to hang metal disks along the telegraph
wires to attract the attention of the
wild swans, which formerly ran Into the
wires in large numbers: and even in
spite of this device many are killed there.
Between London and the British Chan
nel there are certain localities where
passengers bound for the continent eat
their luncheons and throw away the
fragments. one of these is u thick UNI
dergrowth. and the cartridges there
have acquired the habit of hunting the
line They have be ONE 50 familiar with
trains that they viii scarce ) step aside
to let them PASS.
In another locality. Hh"r" frogs breed
on one side Of the road and commonly
migrate across thu tracks i the other
side in large numbers. ctnw:S have e.
tablished a nestin" ana lyr upon thu
frogs which they catch between the
tracks.
Perhaps the oldest of all such incidents
is reported from Maurttus. where rail
ways have been installed to carry SUI
Monkeys. learning of the practice. used
to set out SentineS to give Warnin.
when train was approaching Il certain
grade where it was forced to slow IN
and the whole tribe would leap upon the
cars and throw off cane until the top OF
had to be set to keep these ''hold-up'
animals from the road-kansaS CITY
journal.