Scent, 



6135 



further, it is only when they are in the requisite condition, with 

 respect to moisture, that they either attract or retain scents strongly.* 

 By analogy, therefore, herbagef of various sorts with the earth itself 

 would catch and retain scent from a passing animal, very forcibly, 

 under favorable atmospheric and hygrometric conditions ; very feebly 

 under unfavorable conditions of that kind. 



And further, I am not inclined to believe that much scent is 

 given off by the foot of the animal, though a portion may be, and be 

 retained by the impressions made by its feet4 As will be apparent 



* It is possible colour may have something to do in the matter. It has 

 been remarked that dark cloths retain the effluvia emitted during a post-mortem ex- 

 amination more strongly than light. (Hum. Phys. 908). 



f By the courtesy of the master of a well-known and excellent pack of fox-hounds, 

 I am enabled to corroborate the results of my own more limited observation by those 

 of his extensive experience. He says: " I have always found scent better on lands 

 where there is herbage of any kind than on fallow lands; a marked difference gene- 

 rally on wheat and on fallow; and that grass land more frequently holds a scent than 

 arable land.'' In other words, the more herbage, cccleris paribus^ the betier scent. I 

 may also add, on his authority, that however necessary a suitable degree of moisture 

 may be to the existence of" good scent,'' yet saturation, such as is produced by heavy 

 rain on the niuht preceding the chase is quite destructive of scent. 



X It should be borne in mind that the impressions left by a hare on the ground 

 occupy but a very small space and at very considerable intervals. Probably at every 

 spring she covers not less than six feet; I mean, as she runs under ordinary alarm, 

 and not at her topmost speed. It is, therefore, scarcely reasonable to expect an ex- 

 tensive deposition of scent by the foot in the case of the hare, or indeed of any four- 

 footed animal of chase ; and in respect of the bird, the smooth, somewhat scaly surface 

 of the foot would seem little likely to leave much scent behind it. Still, it will be seen, 

 I do not dispute that some scent is distributed by the foot, and it is plainly so in 

 the case of man himself. Since this paper was commenced, my old pointer having 

 accompanied my servant part of the way to my church, when the latter turned back, 

 took up the scent left in my footsteps and hunted me to the church-door, where he sat 

 and howled till warned to beat a retreat ; and a few days after I saw him hunting the 

 man above named along one of the hard, dry gravel-walks in my garden ; the man 

 had passed some few minutes before, and the dog had rather to " puzzle" the scent 

 out for a few yards, and then he went off at speed with his nose close down 

 to the ground. But then the foot of man gives out much and powerful scent, which 

 is, as it were, concentrated by means of the shoe. Again, in addition to instances of 

 the kind just quoted, which are literally innumerable, a dog will hunt his master who 

 has passed along a road on horseback. But in this case, too, he refers to the ground 

 for information, and therefore, I believe, he hunts the hjrse and not the man. Of 

 course, there is no need to do more than simply state that the dog has no difiiculty in 

 distinguishing the scent of his master, or of any of the members of his master's 

 family ; and it is notorious that the farmer's dog knows his master's stock by night or 

 by day. Many remarkable instances are on record, in which the shepherd's dog haa 



