ON SCEMT. 173 



the increase or diminution of it. Scent is well known 

 to exist in all weathers, and with the air at all tempe- 

 ratures ; I have seen a most brilliant scent, in the 

 hardest black frost at Christmas, and also under the 

 scorching influence of the sun in the months of April 

 and May ; I have witnessed a total absence of it in the 

 gloomy and soft misling damp of November ; and in 

 the boisterous and drying winds of March, I have 

 known hounds to run for an hour, as if they had been 

 tied to a fox. The spring, with the exception of the 

 period when the blustering March winds set in, 

 generally produces better runs than any other part of 

 the year ; but I have also known the day to produce 

 a good scent, even during that tempestuous season. I 

 was onceridingto cover in a perfect hurricane in March, 

 and calling at the house of a friend to breakfast, 

 observed to him that it would be quite useless to 

 attempt to hunt, as the air was so piercing, and the 

 wind so tremendously strong, that I could with diffi- 

 culty keep my cap on my head, and consequently there 

 could be no scent ; he smiled, and said I was much 

 mistaken, as there was a most burning scent, which 

 he had proved, having had a most capital run just 

 before ; the fact was, he had started his gardener, with 

 a quarter of an hour's law, in a circle of about two 

 miles round his park, and had then hunted him with 

 two blood-hounds which he kept ; away they went in 

 right good style, and the aff^righted gardener had only 

 just time to escape into a tree near the house, as 



" Yelled on the view the opening pack." 



My friend's conjectures proved perfectly true ; not- 

 withstanding the continuance of the storm, we threw 



