APPENDICES 423 



fact that there are wild animals predatory and defenceless 

 alike capable of detecting the presence of other animals, by 

 scent alone, up to a mile, or two miles, even at three miles' 

 distance? Instances in clear proof of the longest of these 

 distances are given in my Wild Norway (iSp/). 1 



Again, to glance for a moment at the specialised power 

 that lies in Sight. Consider the telescopic vision of a vulture 

 soaring in the arc of heaven, far beyond human ken though 

 he spans 10 feet across the wings! yet able at that vast 

 altitude instantly to detect blood-stains where a wounded 

 animal has crossed the desert say 10,000 feet below. Con- 

 sider, also, as showing how faulty and unsatisfying is our 

 knowledge of such matters that only a few years ago and 

 even to-day, for all I know our standard works on ornithology 

 invariably attributed such feats of the vulture to its amazing 

 gifts of scent. It was left to the author to point out that 

 neither vultures nor eagles (or practically land-birds of any 

 kind) possess any perceptible powers of scent at all The Field, 

 December 1911 and January 1912. 2 Such factors as these are 

 of vital import in considering such questions as the safety, the 

 maintenance, and the protection of animal-life. Surely they 

 ought to have been examined, if not explored, before embarking 

 in wild speculations on colour as a protective ? 



Every wild creature on earth is protected by the conscious- 

 ness that from hour to hour, by night as by day, its life depends 



1 Whether the term "scent" meets the case or not, at least our tongue 

 provides no other. Such long-range perceptions may be attributable to 

 causes or to emanations unknown and impalpable to us. Thus, on our 

 Northumbrian moors, we have certain insects (as, e.g., the oak-eggar and 

 fox-moth) the males of which detect the presence of a female up to quite 

 incalculable distances. Carry in your pocket a captive female and soon 

 the moor for miles to leeward will be occupied by a procession of male 

 pilgrims to the shrine. Modern discoveries in "wireless telegraphy," and 

 similar marvels of practical science, suggest the thought that there may 

 yet remain undiscovered other cryptic elements in the atmosphere, other 

 physical laws, or physical senses affecting the animal-world, hitherto un- 

 suspected and undreamt of by us. That lower world has enjoyed its 

 "wireless" for ages before Marconi was born. 



2 I am not overlooking the experiments of Darwin with condors in 

 South America; nor the "Observations of Tristram (Jbis, 1859, p. 280) or 

 of Baker (Nile Tributaries, p. 492). See also Newton's Dictionary of 

 Birds, p. 1017, Note. 



