SCENT 



CHAPTER VIII 



OF all matters connecting with hunting, scent 

 is the one that we know least about. We 

 can of course tell whether it is a good or 

 bad scenting day, by the way hounds run, but to 

 forecast w^hat the state of the scent will be on any 

 given day, is entirely beyond our powers. Pos- 

 sibly it is just as well we cannot prophesy in this 

 respect, for we should always be picking the good 

 days, and the uncertainty of the sport would 

 be lost to us. If we knew we were going to kill 

 our fox every day, hunting him would very soon 

 begin to pall. Scent of course plays the most 

 important part in hunting, for without it, your 

 hounds — no matter how good they are — cannot 

 run a yard. 



Roughly speaking, scent is governed by the 

 nature of the ground and the state of the atmos- 

 phere. We know that on the day that a human 

 being can smell the scent of a fox at some crossing- 

 place in a lane or on a road, hounds as a rule 

 cannot own it, because it is too far above them. 

 Beyond this stage of our knowledge, it is difficult 

 to speak vv^ith any certainty. Speaking in the 

 vernacular : " There's nowt sae queer as scent." 

 The factors that influence scent are the fox 

 himself, the nature of the soil, the condition of 

 the surface, the temporary state of the surface, 

 and the state of the weather. 



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