120 BIRDS RETAINING THEIR SCENT. 



Speaking of the American quail however, Frank For- 

 rester says 



" This cunning little bird has either the power or the pe- 

 culiarity of retaining the scent for some time after alighting, 

 when it is alarmed, so that the best dogs in the world shall 

 fail to find it" (he supposes this may be due to an "exer- 

 tion of will " only) " since I have invariably observed during 

 the period in which the quail gives forth no scent, it cannot 

 be forced to rise, even on the openest ground, unless actually 

 almost trodden on. It occurs only with unwounded birds, 

 I have never known setters to have the smallest difficulty in 

 finding crippled quail, or dead quail. I have even seen dogs 

 find one dead quail among a whole bevy of wild ones 

 which they could not scent." * 



Frank Forrester then quotes cases within his experi- 

 ence, which he thinks prove the accuracy of those opinions 

 with which on the whole we generally concur. 



We have often noticed cases of a similar nature 

 ourselves, but we venture to think that the reason 

 why a dead or badly wounded bird can be readily 

 found by the dog, is because the muscular contraction 

 of the skin is thereby destroyed, the subtile aroma of 

 the bird, wich we call " scent " is therefore freely given 

 off. We shall have more to say respecting this pro- 

 cess in our chapter on Wild Fowl Shooting, where 

 we hope to show to our reader's satisfaction, that death 

 or a severe wound to water-birds has these self-same 

 results f and also instantly destroys the power of ex- 

 cluding water from the plumage, which as we know 

 the duck tribe eminently possess, until it has passed 

 into an adage to speak of some useless proceeding 



* Frank Forrester's American Field Sports, by Henry Wm. Herbert, 

 1852, Vol. i, p. 269. 



f See Chapter xix. of this Volume page 425. 



