HOW ANIMALS GET HOME. 215 



he had grown from a boy to a man, and was, of course, 

 much changed in both voice and appearance. It is prob- 

 able that where horses come back, they do so mainly by 

 sight and memory. 



As for dogs, they not only can see well, but they have 

 the additional help of their intelligent noses. The profi- 

 ciency to which some breeds of dogs have brought their 

 smelling powers the precision with which they will an- 

 alyze. and detect different scents is surprising. I have 

 lately seen trustworthy accounts of two hunting-dogs, one 

 of which pointed a partridge on the farther side of a stone 

 wall, much to the surprise of his master, who thought his 

 dog was an idiot ; and the other similarly indicated a bird 

 sitting in the midst of a decaying carcass, the effluvium of 

 which was disgustingly strong, yet not sufficiently so to dis- 

 guise the scent of the bird to the dog's delicate nostrils. 

 Fox -hounds will trace for miles, at full speed and with 

 heads high, the step of a Mercury-footed fox, simply by 

 the faint odor with which his lightly touching pad has 

 tainted the fallen leaves. 



There are few cases where a dog is taken from one home 

 to another, when he could not see most of the time where 

 he was going* In that complicated journey of the Holy- 

 well workman's pet from northern Wales to Manchester, 



