102 



SCENT INEXPLICABLE. 



[CH. VI. 



begins partly to comprehend your instructions respect- 

 ing his range. There is no reason why he should not 

 have been taken out a few days before this, not to show 

 him birds, but to have commenced teaching him how to 

 traverse his ground. Indeed, if we had supposed him 

 of a sufficient age (132), he might by this time be some- 

 what advanced towards a systematic beat. It is seeing 

 many birds early that is to be deprecated, not his being 

 taught how to range. 



174. Be careful to enter every field at the leeward* 

 side (about the middle), that he may have the wind to 

 work against. Choose a day when there is a breeze, 

 but not a boisterous one. In a calm, the scent is sta- 

 tionary, and can hardly be found unless accidentally. 

 In a gale it is scattered to the four quarters, f You 



* " Leeward" a nautical phrase 

 here meaning the side towards 

 which the wind blows from the 

 field. If you entered elsewhere, 

 the dog while ranging would be 

 tempted, from the natural bearing 

 of his nose towards the wind, to 

 come back upon you, making his 

 first turn inwards instead of out- 

 wards. 



h But, independently of these 

 obvious reasons, scent is affected 

 by causes into the nature of which 

 none of us can penetrate. There 

 is a contrariety in it that ever has 

 puzzled, and apparently ever will 

 puzzle, the most observant sports- 

 man (whether a lover of the chase 

 or gun), and therefore, in igno- 

 rance of the doubtless immutable, 

 though to us inexplicable, laws 

 by which it is regulated, we are 

 contented to call it "capricious." 

 Immediately before heavy rain 

 there frequently is none. It is 

 undeniable that moisture will at 

 one time destroy it, at another 

 bring it. That on certain days 

 in slight frost, for instance, 



setters will recognise it better 

 than pointers, and, on the other 

 hand, that the nose of the latter 

 will prove far superior after a long 

 continuance of dry weather, and 

 this even when the setter has been 

 furnished with abundance of water, 

 which circumstance pleads in 

 favour of hunting pointers and 

 setters together. The argument 

 against it, is the usual inequality 

 of their pace, and, to the eye of 

 some sportsmen, the w r ant of har- 

 mony in their appearance. Should 

 not this uncertainty respecting the 

 recognition of scent teach us not 

 to continue hunting a good dog 

 who is frequently making mis- 

 takes, but rather to keep him at 

 " heel " for an hour or two ? He 

 will consider it a kind of punish- 

 ment, and be doubly careful when 

 next enlarged. Moreover, he may 

 be slightly feverish from over- 

 work, or he may have come in 

 contact with some impurity, in 

 either of which cases his nose 

 would be temporarily out of 

 order. 



