Ii8 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



The best natural quarterers (or dogs, for that matter) will 

 invariably be those that alter their methods to suit the occasion. 

 When game is scarce, they will hunt wide, because, in the absence 

 of the scent of game pervading the atmosphere, they can detect 

 the presence of the game at far greater distances than when the 

 scent is everywhere. 



They will hunt wide also in good scent. 



Conversely, in bad scent they will hunt closely, and when 

 birds are plentiful, or scattered and lying close, they will do so 

 also, and to the author this variation of beat to suit the occasion 

 is by far the greatest proof of nose and sense. 



Everybody likes to see a dog draw nicely and sharply up a 

 good distance, and point, knowing precisely where the game is ; 

 but these appearances are often deceptive. Nobody knows how 

 far the birds have run, or how much of the draw was due to the 

 foot scent and how little to the body scent. These appearances 

 of good nose have to be taken in conjunction with the manner 

 of beating the ground, before a just estimate of the olfactory 

 powers can be quickly formed. This is made all the more 

 difficult, because a dog of poor courage will generally draw to 

 game as soon as he detects foot scents, whereas the highest- 

 couraged and best quarterers will often gallop over those scents, 

 recognising but scouting the temptation, and will only draw up 

 to body scent. 



The difference between foot and body scents is not very well 

 understood by anyone except the dog, and not always by 

 him. Very much nonsense has been written on the subject. 

 The author has noticed comments in the Press showing that 

 the writers believed the foot scent to be an emanation from 

 the feet in contact with the ground. The foot scent is the path 

 of scent left by an animal that has moved away. The author 

 has observed it left by a flying grouse, and also by a diving otter. 

 In neither case could the feet have had anything to do with the 

 matter. But that does not help us to know how the dog detects 

 the difference between the volatile matter that comes direct from 

 the game to the dog's nose, and the same exudation that first hangs 

 in the air, upon the water, bubbles up from the water, clings to 



