114 HOUND AND HORN 



fine carriage, and are as alike as two peas, I don't 

 insist on their being kept in the cluster. Then 

 Rambler invariably carries the mask or nose home ; 

 and if he can't get that, a pad ; just as his mother 

 used to do." 



^* Funny how hounds sometimes miss seeing the 

 hunted fox when they have run up to him and he 

 has lain down ? " 



*' Well, I think they are so intent on their noses, 

 as it were, that the other senses suffer to some 

 extent. You've seen, I daresay, hound after hound 

 so bent upon carrying on the line as to run full tilt 

 into wire netting which the}^ would have jumped or 

 avoided had they not been so engrossed ; and you've 

 seen them run a line up through a wood while the 

 fox ran back parallel to them quite openly and 

 within a very short distance ; and I've seen the 

 whole pack actually run right over the top of a 

 crouching fox without being aware of it. I some- 

 times think that once the olfactory power is excited 

 and stimulated to full operation the scent pene- 

 trates through the eye, through what anatomists 

 would call the lachrymal duct, to the smelling 

 nerve, as well as through the nostrils. Anyhow, 

 it is believed by naturalists that some deer possess 

 this faculty. If you hold any object to them they 

 feel it not only with their noses but with the 

 corner of their eyes where the lachrymal duct 

 opens. Anyhow, hounds don't see so well when 

 they are carrying a head and in full chase on a 

 hot holding scent, as they do when their smell 

 nerves are not stimulated and excited. And it is 

 as well they don't get taken off the line, for the 



