Experiments on Sense of Smell. 129 
favour he perceives it at a distance of forty yards or more. 
Many sportsmen have told me, and I have seen it in my 
own dogs, that they can generally tell whether the pointer 
or setter is standing fur or feather, or even different kinds 
of winged game. 
Some sportsmen are unobservant, or so much more con- 
cerned about the “bag” than interested in the movements of 
their dogs, to pay any attention to such matters, and are 
apt to regard this as a mere fancy. Every man I have met 
with, however, who has had the intelligence to train his own 
dog has remarked it. Carlo I. was quite familiar with snipe 
and quail in Australia, but his attitude on first finding a 
covey of partridges in England, was totally different. He 
almost lay down to the scent, and always did so subsequently. 
When standing a hare his tail was carried very low, while 
he stood upright. On a pheasant in a hedge or ditch he 
stood like a pointer, while his manner on snipe might be 
described as “sneaking.” 
When a wounded pheasant falls in cover, this power of 
discrimination comes into play remarkably. The bird runs 
perhaps two hundred yards before it is picked up by the 
dog; in the meantime, hares, rabbits, and other pheasants 
have probably crossed its path, but the first-rate retriever 
—there are not too many of them, to be sure, but this is 
invariably the fault of the trainer or owner—sticks to that 
scent, and brings the bird to bag, possibly because the 
odour of a wounded bird losing blood may be different from 
that of an unwounded bird. 
Everyone who is acquainted with the beach at Brighton, 
with its water-worn pebbles, will understand the difficulty of 
finding any particular stone, unless it differs very conspic- 
uously from the others. By careful examination, we may 
often observe some slight peculiarity sufficient for identifica- 
tion which would not be perceived by the eye of a dog. 
I was accustomed, when walking on the beach with a friend, 
to pick up some stone having any slight recognisable mark 
K 
