FOX-HUNTING IN MAY 



In late April and May, hunting on the hills is 

 a much less strenuous undertaking than in winter. 

 There is no snow or ice on the rocks, and even on 

 the high tops the air is often comfortably warm 

 while visibility is generally good. Scent, too, 

 usually serves during the early hours, and some- 

 times long after the sun has begun to exert its 

 power hounds can still run hard. 



Speaking of scent reminds me that I saw a 

 statement the other day by a well known shooting 

 man, to the effect that a setter or a pointer can 

 often wind birds two hundred yards away, and 

 though the scent is perfectly plain to the dog it 

 cannot be detected by a human being. This 

 was apropos of people often being able to smell 

 a fox — or rather the place where a fox has passed — 

 and yet perhaps ten couples of hounds fail to hold 

 the line. In the first place I grant that the 

 sense of smell, and the knowledge of differentiating 

 between the body-scent and foot-scent is more 

 highly developed in the pointer and setter than 

 the hound, but it should be remembered that the 

 two animals have for generations been worked 

 along totally different lines. A setter is used to 

 find stationary birds, or birds which at any rate 

 are moving within a small area of ground, whereas 

 a hound is expected to follow the twists and turns 

 of his fox closely, and he seldom has need, in fact 

 practically never requires, to wind his quarry 

 at a distance. 



A man can smell a fox only when the scent 

 lies high, and on a day of this kind hounds can 

 seldom run because the scent is too far above 

 them. When scent is low, or even " breast 

 high " to a hound, a human being cannot detect 

 it ; if he could, there wouldn't be much need to 

 use hounds. As a matter of fact, I have often 



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