THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 233 



the case when the ground is foiled by a flock of sheep. 

 But this is only the scent to which hounds are reduced 

 when there is no other — when that which they seek to 

 find floating in the air, is *' dispersed, or rarified, by the 

 meridian sun's intenser heat;" — it is the scent which 

 serves them to hunt, but not to run. They can plough 

 the ground with their noses, and potter on the line, and 

 on the line only, with the scent of the pad. The scent 

 with which they run, breast high, with heads erect, is 

 that which pervades the air some eighteen inches above 

 the surface of the earth; — the scent which improves 

 while " the panting chase grows warmer as he flies ;" — 

 it is the same which floats above the bodies of the birds, 

 and enables the pointer, instead of stooping for his game, 

 to stand in a more exalted attitude, with his head and 

 stern at right angles. Should any one, for the sake of 

 argument, inquire, why, if the scent be chiefly in the air, 

 it does not serve equally along a hard road ? I should 

 attribute the difficulties occasioned by Mac Adam, quite 

 as much to the loss of impending vapour, as to the 

 want of retaining power in the surface, and consequent 

 diminution of pad scent. Moreover, hounds will very 

 often fly along a road, and, in the month of March, 

 when the whole country has been in a pulverized con- 

 dition, they have held the ultra pace, enveloped in 

 clouds of dust. Any one who has observed stag-hounds 

 following the deer cart, which has preceded them some 



