THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 219 



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 ^y 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 

 ten minutes, will have little doubt of a scent from a 

 body which has never been nearer in contact with the 

 earth upon which they tread, than the bottom of the 

 vehicle ; and I should be sorry to find myself in the 

 skin of a fox, which might be conveyed in a wheel- 

 barrow over a country, if a good pack of hounds had to 

 make the most of any scent they might find uncon- 

 nected with the touch. It is very commonly, and justly, 

 remarked, that when all the field (and probably the 

 hoi^ses themselves also) are sensible of the smell of a 

 fox, little scent can be expected for hounds : the fact is, 

 that there is then not sufficient weight of atmosphere to 

 condense the volatile particles exuded from his body ; 

 instead of remaining motionless, they are too quickly 

 refined, and soar aloft. If all this be not absolutely 

 logical proof that the scent borne upon the breezes 

 does not owe its existence entirely and solely to " the 

 touch, that is, the i^ad of the fox touching the ground, 

 it must, I think, go far to upset the theory of any one 

 who will maintain, that if the fox had touched nothing. 



