SCENT, &C. 



dog's breast, the vesicles of moisture serve as canals to carry the 

 effluvium into their noses, and the gentle wind so much helps to 

 spread it, that every hound, even at eight or ten paces distance, 

 especially with the wind, may have a due portion. 



That the same hare will, at divers times, emit finer or grosser 

 particles, is equally manifest to every one observant of the fre- 

 quent changes in a single chase. The coursing of a cur dog, 

 is ever the occasion of a fault, and after such an accident, the 

 hounds must be again and again put upon the scent, before they 

 will acknowledge it for their game; the reason is, the change 

 in the motion causes one in the perspiring particles. The altera- 

 tions of scent in a yielding hare are less frequently productive 

 of faults, because they are more gradual and insensibly grow 

 smaller; but that alterations there are, every dog-boy knows, 

 by the old hounds pressing forward with greater earnestness as 

 the hare is near her end. 



Motion, continues this author, is the chief cause of discharg- 

 ing these particles of scent, because a hare is very seldom winded 

 whilst quiet in her form, although the hounds are so near as 

 even to run over her ; sometimes indeed she is chopped upon 

 her seat, but this probably is the consequence of her own 

 curiosity, in moving and rising up in it, to watch the proceed- 

 ings of her enemies. It is very plain, the slower the hare 

 moves, the stronger and grosser are the particles of scent she 

 leaves, which is one reason that the morning walk will yield 

 scent so much longer than in flight when hunted. 



It is diverting to hear country fellows, on sight of a hare, 

 cry out, she is all over in a sweat ; the most indifferent sports- 

 men know to the contrary, and that on the nicest examination, 

 no proof has ever been found, any more than of the sweating 

 of a dog or cat. Another prevailing notion is, that the longer 

 a hare has been hunted, the weaker the scent grows. But, con- 

 tinues this author, I never found such an alteration, and if any 



