THE GUN 113 



we know it is often through scent. Scent that clings 

 for hours and carries for miles is the resource of so 

 many of the unwinged and mute wild creatures of 

 wood and open ground. Nor is it confined to the 

 wingless. The sly collector has learnt how to lure 

 his emperor moths simply by imprisoning the fascinat- 

 ing lady moth in a cardboard box and setting this 

 down on the heath. Here I think the clue may be 

 through refinements of refinement in scent. If not, 

 the emperor moths can only gather round the charm- 

 ing box through a sense the nature of which is 

 unknown to us some mystic telepathy in moths. 



Touch, taste, sound, sight, scent to these we 

 are sometimes tempted to add a sixth for wild life, 

 a sense of direction ; but direction would scarcely 

 explain the gathering of the moth suitors. We must 

 either imagine even a seventh sense or fall back on 

 the sense of scent. My feeling is that all these 

 problems as to the way in which wild creatures, 

 without guide, compass, or obvious clue, find each 

 other and their path through pathless space, may 

 one day be traced to the subtilising of the five 

 known senses. 



Whilst shooting in the woods or on the common 

 to-day I rarely see the carrion crows as I did in 

 boyhood. For years one lonely carrion crow in the 

 great oak wood defied every effort of the game- 

 keeper to trap or shoot it. This bird was last of 



H 



