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COMPARATIVE ANATOMY AND PATHOLOGY. 
gers, clinging to the grass or the hushes. In a sun-shiny day the 
scent is seldom strong, for too much of it is evaporated by the 
heat. The most favourable period is a soft, southerly wind, without 
rain, the scent being of the same temperature and gravity with the 
atmosphere ; although it spreads over the level it rises not far above 
the ground, and being breast-high, enables the hound, keeping his 
muzzle in the midst of it, to run at his greatest speed*. The 
different manners or attitudes in which the dogs run, afford pleas- 
ing and satisfactory illustrations of the nature of the scent : some- 
times they will be seen galloping with their noses in the air, as if 
their game had flown away; and, an hour or two afterwards, every 
one of them will have his nose on the ground. The specific gra- 
vity of the atmosphere has changed, and the scent has risen or 
fallen in proportion. A westerly wind stands next to a southerly 
one for a hunting morning. This is all simple enough, and needs 
not the mystification with which it has been surrounded. 
Mr. Delme Radcliffe, in his splendid work on “ The Noble 
Science,” just published, has some interesting remarks on the scent 
of hounds. He says, that “ there is an idiosyncracy — a peculiarity 
in their several dispositions, which requires the skill of a professor 
to cope with. Some young hounds seem to enter on their work 
instinctively — from their first to their last appearance in the field 
they do no wrong — they commence with the scent to which they 
were born, and afford a moral to beings of a higher class in their 
devotion through their lives to the purposes of their creation. 
Others, equally good, will take no notice of any thing — will not 
stoop to any scent during the first season, and are still slack at en- 
tering even at the second ; but ultimately are distinguished at the 
head of the pack, and such, I have always observed, last some 
seasons longer than the more precocious of the same litter. Others 
have an almost inveterate propensity to run any thing and every 
thing, by scent or by view, and act altogether on the voluntary 
principle as soon as they are emancipated from their couplings. 
A love of hare will descend, in particular blood, through genera- 
tions, and will occasionally demonstrate itself, especially on bad 
scenting days, when a hound that is at any time unsteady must 
and will hunt something ; but the same hound, when settled to a 
fox, may be invincible. 
I may, perhaps, be permitted to add here an anecdote respecting 
the sense of smell in birds, and which was related by Mr. Mayo, 
in a lecture “ On the Sensations,” delivered by him, May 20th, 
1836. 
“ Some years ago, a Canary-bird was exhibited, in the Quad- 
* Johnson’s Shooter’s Companion. 
