Hunting Back Trail. 125 
damp earth, which never feels the sun, then across burnt 
patches of rocky soil, and anon among ferns which almost 
stop the passage of a man. Two or three times he was so 
much at fault that I had some misgivings, and nothing but 
my conviction that he was without doubt on the track, and 
of his staunchness in all his work, sustained my confidence 
in him. After the first command I spoke not a word to dis- 
tract his mind, or interfere with the concentration of purpose 
he evinced. To watch such an honest and thorough piece 
of work was a greater pleasure than I have ever derived from 
sport; and when he at length picked up the flask from among 
the ferns, and triumphantly delivered it into my hand, I 
thought John Locke’s self-sufficient depreciation of animal 
intelligence would have met with a severe rebuke, had the 
author of the “Essay concerning Human Understanding” 
stood beside me, and witnessed that dog’s exultation in the 
sucessful performance of the difficult task set him—a task 
which from first to last must have been accompanied by 
full conciousness of the end to be attained, viz., that of finding 
some object associated with his master. 
The powder flask will never again do duty in charging 
the old “Purdey;” but it hangs on the wall among other 
cherished mementoes of the past, each of which could tell 
some story, or has borne some part in adventures by flood 
and field, and serves to carry memory back to scenes whose 
interest was so greatly enhanced by the society of the dog. 
A few days after my return to England a friend took me 
over his shooting to have a look at the coveys, among which 
we should be busy before long, and I gave him the above 
account of hunting on my back trail. He then proposed a 
trial immediately, though having, like myself, some doubts 
whether the dog might not be puzzled in highly-farmed 
country, so different from his native Australia, and swarming 
with ground game. Accordingly I rolled up my pocket hand- 
kerchief, tying it in a knot, unnoticed by the dog, and threw 
it into a ditch. We then separated a few yards, to prevent 
