Page:Australian views of England.djvu/124

  by the iron locomotives. I was undeceived, with a "glad surprise," by the flowers and foliage that coated the embankments and deep cuttings of the London and North-western, on the occasion of my first trip by that line, through the midland counties, on a bright autumn day. A short time afterwards, when travelling by the Midland Railway through Worcestershire, I was delighted to see a family of partridges enjoying the sunshine on the grassy embankment, not in the least disturbed by the whizzing train. Since then I have discovered, by frequent observation, that the wild creatures of the field and copse have made acquaintance with the steam horse as a thing that never meddles with them, however he may shriek and flame, and that they seldom leave their haunts or quicken their pace at his coming. In Cheshire and Shropshire this spring, I have often seen the "timid hare" standing on her hind feet and listening to the train as it rushed past with its hundred passengers. On one occasion I saw several pheasants not twenty yards from the rail, in a field of young wheat, and not one of the birds raised its head from its plunder of the poor farmer. A few miles below Tamworth, in the Trent Valley, a fox made