THE SENSE OF SMELL IN DOGS. 
69 
her full speed, without making any pause at the place where the 
scent changed. This experiment was subsequently repeated with 
other strangers, and with the same result. 
14. — I walked in my ordinary shooting-boots, having previously 
soaked them in oil of aniseed. Although the odour of the ani- 
seed was so strong that an hour afterwards the path which I had 
followed was correctly traced by a friend, this odour did not 
appear to disconcert the bitch in following my trail, for she ran 
me down as quickly as usual. It was noticed, however, by the 
friend who took her to the trail that she did not set off upon it 
as instantaneously as usual. She began by examining the first 
three or four footsteps with care, and only then started off at 
full speed. 
15. — Lastly, I tried some experiments on the power which this 
bitch might display of recognizing my individual odour as ema- 
nating from my whole person. In a large potato-field behind 
the house, a number of labourers had been engaged for eight or 
ten hours in digging up and carrying away potatoes all the way 
along half a dozen adjacent “ drills.” Consequently, there was 
here a strip of bared land in the field about twenty yards wide, 
and a quarter of a mile long, which had been thoroughly well 
trampled over by many strange feet. Down this strip of land 
I walked in a zigzag course from end to end. On reaching the 
bottom I turned out of the field, and again walked up a part of 
the way towards the house, but on the other side of a stone wall 
which bounded the field. This stone wall was breast high, and 
was situated nearly a hundred yards to windward of my previous 
course through the potatoes. The bitch, on being led out of the 
house, was put upon my trail at the top of the field, and at high 
speed picked out my trail among all the others, following roughly 
the various zigzags which I had taken. But the moment she 
gained the “wind’s-eye” of the place where I was standing be- 
hind the wall, she turned abruptly at a right angle, threw up her 
head, and came as straight as an arrow to the spot where I was 
watching her. Yet while watching her I had allowed only my 
eyes to come above the wall, so that she proved herself able 
to distinguish instantly the odour of the top of my head (without 
hat) at a distance of two hundred yards, although at the time 
she was surrounded by a number of over-heated labourers. 
16. — On another day, when it was perfectly calm, I tried the 
experiment of standing in a deep dry ditch, with only the top of 
