SCENT, &C. 139 



but a day warm without sun, is generally a perfect one ; there 

 are not many such in a whole season. In some fogs, scent lies 

 high, in others not at all, depending probably on the quarter the 

 wind is then in. It sometimes lies very high in a mist, when 

 not too wet ; but if the wet continues to hang upon the boughs 

 and bushes, it will fall upon the scent and deaden it. When 

 the dogs roll, and also when cobwebs hang on the bushes, there 

 is seldom much scent. During a white frost, the scent lies 

 high, as it also does when the frost is quite gone ; at the time 

 of its going offl scent never lies. In heathy countries, where the 

 game brushes as it goes along, scent seldom fails ; yet from the 

 Jnclosures of poor land surrounding them, the scent is at times 

 very difficult for hounds ; the sudden change from a good to a 

 bad scent confuses their noses; a scent, therefore, which is less 

 good but less unequal, is to hounds more favourable. When 

 the ground carries, the scent is bad, for an obvious reason, 

 which hare-hunters, who pursue their game over greasy fallows 

 and dirty roads, have great cause to complain of. A remark 

 has been generally made, that scent lies best in the richest soils, 

 and those countries which are favourable to horses, are not so 

 to hounds ; and it has likewise been observed in some particular 

 spots, in almost every country, let the temperature of the air be 

 what it may, tPMt hounds can never carry a scent across them. 



The ingenious author of Observations on Hare-hunting, in 

 speaking of scent, says, the qualities of those portions of matter 

 that discharge themselves from the bodies of beasts of game, 

 would much better suit the experiments of a philosopher, than 

 a huntsman. Whether considered as an extraneous stock of odo- 

 riferous particles given them by Divine Wisdom for the very 

 purpose of being hunted ? Whether they are proper identical 

 parts of the animal's body, that continually ferment and perspire 

 from it? Whether these exhalations are from the breath of 

 the lungs, or through the skin of the whole body ? are queries 



