6206 



Scent. 



and will — but affords us one more justification likewise for considering 

 the human species as apart of the animal creation at large, and there- 

 fore not only in drawing analogies between his instinctive endowments 

 and those of the lower creatures, but in asserting that they are essen- 

 tially of the same nature in each of the two cases, because in the 

 whole of the animal creation beneath man, which can be properly 

 said to be possessed of any intellectual endowment, we see displayed 

 in its highest degree the same volitional impotency conjoined with 

 complete disability to employ the higher intellectual powers, — a dis- 

 ability which amounts to, if it be not rather the consequence of, com- 

 plete deprivation of all the higher powers of mind. 



J. C. Atkinson. 



Scent. — In his interesting paper on scent Mr. Atliinson says (Zool. 6136), " No dog 

 can hunt either feathered or four-footed game in the snow, even for ten yards, by the 

 nose, except in so far as has just been mentioned," namely, "a freshly moved rabbit 

 or hare for a few paces, evidently taking up the scent from the very recently impressed 

 footsteps." My own experience, which has been considerable, has led me to form a 

 different opinion, the grounds whereof I will proceed to give. I well remember once, 

 when crossing some fields in a deep snow, coming upon the track of a hare in the precise 

 course I was about to take. Merely for amusement, and with no view of finding the 

 hare, indeed without thinking whether it was practicable or not, I pointed out the 

 marks to my spaniel, whereupon he poked his nose into the impression in the soft snow, 

 pausing a little to try for scent, after which, to ray surprise, he, entirely of his own 

 accord, deliberately traced the footprints for perhaps 150 yards or less, till, in a small 

 patch of cover, he started the hare from her seat. The dog was a remarkably good one, 

 especially safe and persevering upon a cold scent, but, as he was likewise a very sen- 

 sible old fellow, he may very possibly have been assisted, at least, by sight in following 

 up the hare, though I feel confident he was too knowing in his business to have under- 

 taken the chase, had not his nose assured him it was not hopeless. The time of day 

 must have been not earlier than 10 a. m., nor later than 11, so that we may reckon the 

 footmarks to have been made probably not less than two or three hours previously. I 

 possess however far stronger evidence than the above in support of ray opinion. 

 Though a heavy fall of snow necessarily put a stop to direct pursuit of partridges and 

 pheasants, I have so repeatedly fallen in with them casually at such a time, beside 

 woodcocks, snipes (the latter however in unfrozen springs and ditches), water rails, and 

 moorhens, that I can state confidently the dogs never seemed to find any unusual 

 difficulty in hunting them, this too in places where it was hardly possible for them to 

 be aided by the eye. For shooting rabbits to beagles* a general carpet of thick snow 



* With good dogs, in woods or other cover of some kind, rabbits will afford abun- 

 dant sport, though hardly satisfactory to those who cannot work for their game. For- 

 merly I knew a pack of four or five couples of small beagles, kept exclusively for 



