COUNTRY LIFE
IT was the last stage in the haymaking. In front a heavy farm horse was pulling a side-delivery rake, and behind followed a cart into which the rakings were pitched. Hands were short; and it became a question how to carry on. the continuous operation, when a labourer, suggested that the old horse could manage without guidance, except from the spoken word. So it came about that onlookers were astounded to see a dumb animal performing quite as well as if he were driven or led. He drew the rake with precision and turned left or right at the end in perfect obedience to appropriate shouts. He knew absolutely, for example, that " gee-whoa " meant right-turn. On the same farm the intelligence of more stupid animals, the sheep, astonished many. When the shepherd came up in the afternoon he folded them for a short while on some clover, next door to the field where they were contained. He arrived in a pony-trap, and the instant that the sound of the pony's hoofs on the road reached their ears, the sheep galloped off to the entrance of the clover field, which was in the opposite direction, to the point of the shepherd's arrival. It seems that hunger, or greed, is a. great stimulant of the intelligence. It has often been noticed by shepherds that sheep have an inexplicable sense of time. They know their feeding hours to within a minute or two.
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