Scent, 



6131 



slight — at all events would be if the ground for such inference which 

 we have already noticed did not exist; still we cannot help remarking 

 the appearance of analogy between scent in such cases and the 

 exhalations from a heap of slowly decomposing manure or healing 

 weeds. According to the old proverb, as long as it is left undisturbed 

 little or no smell is emitted ; but only stir it, and the olet process is 

 not long in beginning. 



But further, when the animal moves the scent is not only given off 

 or emitted, but remains, for a variable length of time, upon or about 

 its track. It must, of course, remain thus, either from being sus- 

 pended in the atmosphere, or from being, so to speak, aflSxed 

 to the material objects closely passed by the animal as it 

 moved on. 



That it is occasionally suspended — and considering the nature of 

 the medium of suspension, for a lengthened period — in the atmosphere, 

 is certain; and on this fact are founded such expressions in con- 

 nection with scent as "breast-high." The floating molecules — if 

 molecules there be — of efl9uvium strike the olfactory membranes of 

 the dog (or other animal concerned) at a considerable distance from 

 the animal emitting it, and while he is ranging with his head high 

 above the surface of the earth. I avail myself once more of the com- 

 munication from which I have before quoted. " I have viewed a fox 

 away from cover, and when the hounds have come to my halloo they 

 have taken up the scent and gone off at full cry more than a hundred 

 yards before they came to the actual track of the fox." The same 

 fact is at the bottom of the extreme caution requisite on the part of 

 the sportsman in stalking deer in Scotland, or any of the numerous 

 game animals in other quarters of the globe, not to " give them his 

 wind ; " in other words, not to place himself even for a moment in 

 such a position relatively to them and the direction of the wind, that 

 his scent may be wafted in the currents of the latter within reach of 

 their olfactory organs.* And exactly similar facts are presented to 

 the observation of the shooter in every good scenting day during the 

 season in connection with the usual objects of his pursuit — partridges, 

 pheasants and grouse. 



* I have sometimes purposely concealed myself wben my dog was in a distant part 

 of the field I was walking in. He might not miss me immediately, but as soon as he 

 did he made for the point at which he last saw me. If before he reached that point 

 he "crossed my wind " he invariably came directly to my hiding-place ; if, on the 

 other hand, the wind lay from him to me, he took up the scent of my steps and hunted 

 me to my concealment. 



