A TRUFFLE-HUNTER 221 



has its dark rays — rays without effect upon our retinas, 

 but not apparently on all. Why should not the domain 

 of smell have its secret emanations, unknown to our 

 senses and perceptible to a different sense-organ ? 



If the scent of the dog leaves us perplexed in the sense 

 that we cannot possibly say precisely, cannot even suspect 

 what it is that the dog perceives, at least it is clear that 

 it would be erroneous to refer everything to human 

 standards. The world of sensations is far larger than 

 the limits of our own sensibility. What numbers of 

 facts relating to the interplay of natural forces must 

 escape us for want of sufficiently sensitive organs ! 



The unknown — that inexhaustible field in which 

 the men of the future will try their strength — has 

 harvests in store for us beside which our present 

 knowledge would show as no more than a wretched 

 gleaning. Under the sickle of science will one day 

 fall the sheaves whose grain would appear to-day 

 as senseless paradoxes. Scientific dreams ? No, if 

 you please, but undeniable positive realities, affirmed 

 by the brute creation, which in certain respects has 

 so great an advantage over us. 



Despite his long practice of his calling, despite 

 the scent of the object he was seeking, the rabassier 

 could not divine the presence of the truffle, which 

 ripens in winter under the soil, at a depth of a foot 

 or two ; he must have the help of a dog or a pig, 

 whose scent is able to discover the secrets of the 

 soil. These secrets are known to various insects 

 even better than to our two auxiliaries. They have in 

 exceptional perfection the power of discovering the 

 tubers on which their larvae are nourished. 



