72 A HUNTING CATECHISM 



account of the run, which would only be of 

 interest to local people.) " So we lost the fox 

 after a very fast run indeed. A third fox was 

 found at Askham Bog, but with this fox there 

 was very little scent." 



Thus, with rain coming and an extraordinary 

 low glass, both of which are usually considered 

 absolutely fatal to scent, there was a brilliant 

 scent with one fox, and scarcely any with the 

 other two. If the second fox had not appeared on 

 the scene, everybody would have been content to 

 blame the atmospheric conditions for the lack of 

 scent with the other foxes. 



It is usually considered that there will be a 

 good scent when the glass is steady, at a high 

 level, or is slightly rising, and a bad scent when 

 these conditions are reversed, but such theories 

 are often upset. There is certainly very seldom 

 a scent when a dry blue haze is in evidence, and 

 never when gauzy cobwebs cover all the hedges 

 and every blade of grass — usually seen on a 

 brilliant sunny morning in the autumn, and 

 occasionally in the spring, after a white frost 

 the night before. A wet mist is generally favour- 

 able to scent, and though a hard frost is by no 

 means inimical to it, yet when the frost is thaw- 

 ing, " coming out of the ground," as the country- 

 folk term it, there is never any scent at all. 

 Generally speaking, there is a better scent when 

 the air is somewhat colder than the ground, and 

 in furtherance of this it may be pointed out how 

 often there is a brilliant scent towards evening, 

 after a hot sunny day in the winter, just when 

 the air begins to cool, with a frost impending. It 

 is, however, unusual for it to be a good scenting 

 period unless there has been sufficient rain to 



