THE SENSE OE SMELL IN DOGS. 



69 



her full speed, without making any pause at the place where the 

 scent changed. This experiment was subsequently repeated with 

 other strangers, and with the same result. 



14. — I walked in my ordinary shooting-boots, having previously 

 soaked them in oil of aniseed. Although the odour of the ani- 

 seed was so strong that an hour afterwards the path which I had 

 followed was correctly traced by a friend, this odour did not 

 appear to disconcert the bitch in following my trail, for she ran 

 me down as quickly as usual. It was noticed, however, by the 

 friend who took her to the trail that she did not set off upon it 

 as instantaneously as usual. She began by examining the first 

 three or four footsteps with care, and only then started off at 

 full speed. 



15. — Lastly, I tried some experiments on the power which this 

 bitch might display of recognizing my individual odour as ema- 

 nating from my whole person. In a large potato-field behind 

 the house, a number of labourers had been engaged for eight or 

 ten hours in digging up and carrying away potatoes all the way 

 along half a dozen adjacent "drills." Consequently, there was 

 here a strip of bared land in the field about twenty yards wide, 

 and a quarter of a mile long, which had been thoroughly well 

 trampled over by many strange feet. Down this strip of land 

 I walked in a zigzag course from end to end. On reaching the 

 bottom I turned out of the field, and again walked up a part of 

 the way towards the house, but on the other side of a stone wall 

 which bounded the field. This stone wall was breast high, and 

 was situated nearly a hundred yards to windward of my previous 

 course through the potatoes. The bitch, on being led out of the 

 house, was put upon my trail at the top of the field, and at high 

 speed picked out my trail among all the others, following roughly 

 the various zigzags which I had taken. But the moment she 

 gained the "wind's-eye" of the place where I was standing be- 

 hind the wall, she turned abruptly at a right angle, threw up her 

 head, and came as straight as an arrow to the spot where I was 

 watching her. Yet while watching her I had allowed only my 

 eyes to come above the wall, so that she proved herself able 

 to distinguish instantly the odour of the top of my head (without 

 hat) at a distance of two hundred yards, although at the time 

 she was surrounded by a number of over-heated labourers. 



16. — On another day, when it was perfectly calm, I tried the 

 experiment of standing in a deep dry ditch, with only the top of 



