gentlest and best natured dogs, fear- 
some only in name, and so called be- 
cause it was once used almost exclus- 
ively to follow the bloody trail of 
wounded beasts which the sight hunt- 
ing dog could not, or would not, do. 
HE difference between these two 
kind of hunting dogs is apparent if 
one gets into the woods with a collie 
dog running loose and a rabbit hound in 
leash. The collie will not run a cold 
rabbit trail. He prefers to race through 
the bushes until he routs a rabbit from 
its form, dashing madly after it, trying 
to catch it before it gets out of sight, 
leaping high in the air to see over the 
low bushes. It pays no attention to 
the hot scent which would guide a hound 
dog straight to the running rabbit. 
Wait an hour, if you choose, when the 
rabbit scent is so cold that the collie 
dog will not even sniff at it, and then 
slip the leash from the rabbit hound. 
Without a moment’s hesitancy this dog 
will pick up the track and follow the 
scent unerringly through the thickest 
cover until the rabbit is again started. 
‘Now notice another peculiar thing 
which the first hunter taught this dog. 
As soon as the rabbit starts, and the 
‘scent grows warm and hot, the pursu- 
‘ing dog begins to bay in a deep, musical 
voice. It is not the sharp bark of a 
hunting collie, nor the yapping of a 
‘terrier. It is the lone wolf howl of the 
first hunting dog! 
| ATCH the race from a convenient 
| knoll and you will see that the 
‘running hound never so much as looks 
to see where the rabbit is, or where it 
‘is going. He doesn’t care. With head 
swinging low, he runs lumbering along, 
voicing his presence and his purpose, 
not caring a hoot what the rabbit 
thinks, giving it all the opportunity in 
the world to es- 
cape, but all the 
time telling the 
concealed hunt- 
er where the 
game is! This 
gives the hunter 
time and oppor- 
tunity to am- 
bush the rabbit. 
No matter if the 
rabbit doubles 
back in plain 
sight of the 
hound, he does 
not look up or 
stop, continuing 
on down the 
srail as_ relent- 
-ess as fate. 
_ But how does 
vhe dog do it? 
_ Not the way 
most folk think. 
| 
} 
} 
is] -_- 




The beagle, a typical example of the slow 
trailer. His voice is an asset to the 
hunter. 
Just what is meant by the term scent? 
Many of us have an idea that “scent” 
is something smelly about all wild ani- 
mals, like the odor of a menagerie tent 
at the circus, or the monkey house at 
the zoo. The body scent of a horse or 
a cow is not the scent of the stable. 
Neither is the body scent of wild ani- 
mals at large the stench of a circus 
cage. Different breeds of animals smell 
different, and individual animals of the 
same family do not smell alike. Even 
the odor of individual humans is alto- 
gether different! 
HE scent of animals is something 
more than a faint animal odor 
which all wild beasts leave in their 
footprints and which the keen nose of 
a dog is able to smell. 
It is really much more than that. 
Let us take, for example, a red fox 
and pursue it with an imaginary hound 
dog. This fox, let us say, is asleep in 
the snow on one side of a wooded ravine 
on a cold, still January morning. Late 
last night this fox was hunting field 
mice down in the valley, a mile away, 
where a network of tracks in the snow 

The pointer, a dog trained to hunt birds only, to work without voice and to hold the 
quarry on point, 
tell the story of his hunt. The fox 
hunter, with the hound in leash, finds 
these tracks and can see that a big fox 
was recently hunting there. The dog 
thrusts its nose deep into the snow and 
sniffs loudly. As soon as the chain is 
loosed the hound goes trotting slowly 
away, now and then stopping to thrust 
a long nose into the snow, down to the 
hard packed track that was immedi- 
ately beneath the fox’s foot, where still 
remains a bit of the fox odor. 
it is a mistake to think that a dog 
can tell which way a fox was going by 
smelling of a track. Of course a dog 
can tell which end of a trail is the old- 
est by the simple comparison of scent, 
the tracks made first having the least 
scent, because this scent is always and 
ever diffusing and disappearing in the 
air. So it will be some little time be- 
fore the hound noses out the intricate 
fox tracks and finally approaches the 
sleeping animal. 
The hound does not try to stalk the 
fox. It makes no attempt to steal upon 
Reynard unawares. More than likely the 
dog will give a loud, echo-waking howl 
the very minute he knows that he has 
straightened out the track. This brings 
the fox to its feet, watching the back 
trail, until it is certain that the dog is 
looking for him—and then Mr. Fox goes 
away from there! 
OW if you had come into the ravine 
at about this time, as I often have, 
of a still, frosty January morning, when 
the air is especially clean and pure, you 
could have smelled that fox, just as the 
dog smelled it, as the little animal got 
up out of his bed in the snow and 
dashed away. The air thereabouts 
would be full of the pungent odor of 
fox. This is exactly the same scent 
that guides the hunting dog, only the 
dog’s nose is many times keener, and 
to him, in all 
probability, the 
fox odor is as 
sharp and rank 
as a fresh skunk 
barrage is to 
our dull noses. 
More than 
likely hound 
dogs can distin- 
guish between 
individual foxes 
by the scent. Re- 
member that 
your dog’ can 
easily follow 
your footprints 
through acrowd. 
One of my set- 
ter dogs once 
got loose and 
followed my 
horse two miles 
(Con. on p. 319) 
207 
