I06 THE SENSES OF ANIMALS 



their highly developed powers of smell, but it will be suffi- 

 cient to say that if the student can get permission to go out 

 with a good gamekeeper or as a favoured spectator at a 

 shoot, he will learn a great deal about the way in which 

 gun-dogs use their noses. 



There is often much confusion over the question of grey- 

 hounds. The fact that they hunt by sight does not mean that 

 they are without any scenting powers ; they are well equipped 

 with long noses and nasal passages, but their eyesight is very 

 keen compared with other dogs which are not bred for 

 hunting by sight and this is the sense on which they rely for 

 their success. 



Poachers' dogs are often "lurchers" — a word used to de- 

 scribed a greyhound cross — often a cross between a greyhound 

 and a retriever of some kind. These lurchers are genuine all- 

 round dogs which combine the speed of the greyhound with 

 the smelling powers inherited from the retriever side. Such 

 dogs can find game, follow it, and retrieve it too. To make 

 friends with a real poacher is to learn more about animals 

 and their ways than most keepers can teach you. An old- 

 fashioned poacher is a field naturalist of a high order and 

 must not be compared with modern poaching gangs abroad 

 at times with machine-guns when poaching deer. These 

 scoundrels are merely ruffians who oflTend against the laws 

 of man and the animal they steal, and no genuine poacher 

 would think of associating with such riff-raflf who should, by 

 rights, be punished with the maximum severity that our 

 game laws allow. 



Before going on to consider the other powers of scent used 

 by mammals, it must be remembered that all our predatory, 

 species can follow a trail or find their victims by means of 

 their noses. Badgers will find rabbits below ground, not > 

 only by hearing the squeaking of the young in a breeding 

 chamber, but by scenting them too. Foxes will track down 

 poultry and game by the same means, and stoats and weasels, 

 though using their keen sight as well, are capable of follow- 

 ing scent accurately and over quite long distances. 



In smaller mammals such as voles, mice, and squirrels, 

 smell is used to distinguish between one kind of food and 

 another and to tell whether a nut, for instance, is sound or 



