I 



332 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



line instead of across it, he was perfectly true to the 

 steps of the man ; but he had not gone forty yards 

 before he discovered that he did not then carry the 

 burtlien he was endeavouring to overtake. He re- 

 turned, therefore, before he had run those footsteps 

 out, and resumed the scent where the deer was again 

 lifted and carried on. 



I have never in the whole course of my experience 

 been able to account for scent, or what it is that leads 

 on the gifted dog. I have seen hounds plunge their 

 heads and noses in the most fetid refuse and carrion, 

 so much so, that they were a nuisance to be near, and 

 yet, in the midst of such an abomination borne along 

 with them, and apparently overpowering every other 

 smell, and tainting the surrounding air, they could 

 pick out and inhale the scent of a fox, or even a 

 hare, of the presence of which neither man nor any 

 other animal but a hound was aware. In speaking 

 of noses, I once made a niiddle-no-ed oentleman verv 

 irate, who, while I was drawing for a fox with twenty 

 couples of as good foxhounds as ever entered a wood, 

 suddenly pulled up his horse in the cover ride, and 

 exclaimed, " I smell a fox." When he said this the 

 hounds were all round us, and not one even feathered 

 or in any way grew busy. "Do you!" I replied, 

 " then I wish you would be the papa of my next 

 litter of puppies, for you have a finer nose than any 

 dog in ni)^ pack." 



In breeding, gentle reader, and only then, you are 

 permitted to use the term " dog," to a male foxhound. 

 The middle-aged gentleman grew excessively red, 

 and, though he said nothing to me, I Avas afterwards 

 told that, although admitting that my wish was uttered 

 good-humouredly, he felt himself hurt and insulted 



