The Sense of Smell. 115 
The principle of inheritance here invoked has been held 
sufficient to explain the ardent desire of every boy, and even 
of many girls, to climb trees—not merely for the purpose 
of taking birds’ nests, or of gathering fruit, but for the 
very enjoyment experienced in the act of climbing. If man, 
whose structure is now but poorly adapted to this end, feels 
a subtle pleasure in getting into a tree and swinging on a 
branch, and if, as seems probable, this is an unconscious 
reminiscence—the inherited remnant of a constant habit of 
a far distant ancestor who passed an aboreal existence— 
there is nothing extravagant in attributing the action of the 
dog similarly to the law of inheritance. But, if we admit 
this, can we account on the same ground for our own penchant 
for game in an almost putrid condition? In the early days 
of man’s tenancy of this earth, when the struggle for life 
must have been much more severe; when his sole depen- 
dence was on the chase; when agriculture was unknown, 
or at least unpractised, in times of scarcity, decomposing 
animal matter must have frequently afforded the only means 
of sustenance. Hence, then, possibly, and even probably, 
the grouse, hare, or venison, which now comes to our tables 
in a state of actual decomposition, represents a taste acquired 
ages ago by the conditions of primitive life, and is not to 
be distinguished in origin from a habit which brings upon 
our domestic dogs the severest reprobation and prompt 
chastisement. 
In my own experience there is no foundation for the 
opinion, entertained by many sportsmen, that a dog’s powere 
ef scent are temporarily or permanently affected by the 
indulgence of this habit, though the presumption would 
certainly be in favour of that view, judging from analogy 
with ourselves. No human being, we may suppose, whose 
sense of smell was entirely usurped by the odour of patchouli, 
would be likely to detect the indications of the refined 
natural perfumes of the violet or rose. But in the case of 
the dog we are considering a sense altogether beyond our 
12 
