6130 



Scent. 



niolionless creature. Several instances have occnrred under my own 

 observation, or have been related to me by others on whose accuracy, 

 alike of observation and relation, 1 could fully depend, which are 

 curious as illustrating this point. Thus one day last season I got 

 over a gap in the fence into the corner of a field where the hedges 

 forming the corner came together at a right angle ; immediately on 

 entering the corner my dog stood at a place in the fence running into 

 that we had crossed, about ten or twelve feet from the angle ; [ 

 crossed this fence also, and eventually got a shot at a single partridge 

 which had run through from the point at which the dog had taken up 

 the scent, and after running up the ditch about fifteen or twenty yards, 

 had stopped and lay very close. 'Don ' was not satisfied at finding 

 only one bird ; he seemed to be convinced there ought to be more. 

 He tried back, over the hedge, and up the other side. I followed ; 

 but there were no more partridges to be found in that direction. 

 Still the dog was not satisfied, and quartered every inch of the ground 

 from the spot where he had first pointed. I thought he was mistaken, 

 and turned back towards the gap over which I had entered the field. 

 Now, however, it appeared that 'Don' was right, for a second bird 

 rose from a tuft of grass which T had passed so close to three or four 

 times as almost to brush it with my feet, and my dog as often, without 

 even the slightest suspicion of scent. After reloading, he came up to 

 me, and as he passed at once recognised the bird's hiding-place — 

 thus showing that scent had been diffused by the bird's motion, and 

 although he had neither seen it fly nor fall, went direct to the hedge 

 into which it had fallen, about twenty-five yards distant, and pointed. 

 Again, in a communication I have lately received, the writer says, — 

 '' 1 have seen a dog pass a rabbit on its form without scenting it ; I 

 have found the rabbit myself, and seen it crouch itself down closer; 

 and then the dog coming round again has at once pointed it. In 

 that case I supposed the animal by its motion diffused the scent more 

 strongly round it." Again, " I was walking with a pack of beagles 

 which were trying the ground all round me on a fallow field ; I found 

 a hare lying ; two of the dogs were close to her, and on my giving the 

 usual ' tantara,' one of them stopped and looked up at me, and, in 

 doing so, set his foot upon the hare's back ; but, till the hare sprang 

 from her form, had not the slightest idea of where it was. It was 

 rather a frosty morning, but they had previously found and run a hare 

 very well." 



Perhaps the grounds afforded in these and similar cases for inferring 

 the presence of an ammoniacal element in scent are quite sufficiently 



