242 HUNTING DIRECTORY. 



Effect of the Atmosphere 



and I have as often perceived that, a storm approaching, 

 the scent will in a moment change and vanish. Nor is 

 the suddenness of such alteration the least wonder, if 

 we take into consideration the smallness of the particles. 

 The same efficient cause may penetrate and corrupt 

 these minute corpuscles in the twinkling of an eye, which 

 requires an hour or a day to operate on bodies of greater 

 bulk and substance : as the same fire or aquafortis will 

 dissolve the filings of steel in an instant ; though a pound 

 lump of that same metal is so long able to resist their 

 violence. 



" That these particles of scent are of an equal (exactly 

 equal) specific gravity with the particles of the air, is 

 demonstrated by the falling and rising of them in just 

 proportion to it. I have often smiled at hasty huntsmen, 

 to hear them rating and cursing their dogs (that yes- 

 terday were the best in England) for galloping and 

 staring with their noses in the air, as if their game was 

 flown ; for often does it happen that it is in vain for them 

 to seek after the scent in any other place, the increasing 

 weight of that fluid element having wafted it over their 

 heads. Though even at such a season, (after the first 

 mettle and fury of the cry is something abated) the more 

 steady beagles may make a shift to pick it out by the 

 particles left by the brush of her feet, (especially if there 

 be not a strong, drying, exhaling wind, to hurry these 

 away after the rest.) This often happens in a calm, 

 gentle, steady frost, when (as I conceive) the purity, 

 coldness, or perhaps the nitre, of the air, serves to fix 

 and preserve a few remaining particles, that they do not 

 easily corrupt. At another season, when the air is light. 



