own in range, exactness, and discrimination. Speaking only of my retrievers, who would find, stand, and recover their game-thus combining all the work expected of sporting dogs -it has never alarmed me to see them revelling in carrion before or during the time when they were expected to prove their powers. Carlo I., who rarely lost a wounded bird among the many thousands he brought to bag on land and water, was incorrigible in this respect, and there were abundant opportunities for testing him in the hot climates of Australia and South America, where putrid animal matter festers under the sun. Soon after saturating his coat with ordure, he would work out the trail of a wounded duck on wet ground with unfailing certainty, while I, on taking the bird from his mouth, could hardly endure the effluvium that enveloped him.

Some years ago, when shooting on Dartmoor with Mr. Irwin Cox, an opportunity presented itself to me of calling his attention to this, his impression then being that the smell of the carrion must render the dog's nose useless. For a week previously we had daily made good bags of snipe, woodcock, and plover, with a few duck, and, now and then, a blackcock, over this Australian-bred retriever, who found, stood, and brought to hand any kind of game. Soon after the start for the moor one morning, Carlo I. was seen to be busily engaged perfuming himself on the remains of a decomposed rabbit, cast upon a dungheap. Mr. Cox suggested leaving the dog at home, insisting that he would be worthless for the remainder of the day. The incident, however, did not concern my mind, and we went on the moor under a cheerful sun, with every prospect of sport. The snipe lay close, feeding greedily in the soft places, and Carlo I. found and stood them splendidly, and retrieved them throughout the day in perfect style.

The bag included snipe, woodcock, partridge, and hare, with a duck, cleverly recovered, after a laborious hunt among thick reeds and grass and pools of miry water, without any assistance from us.

Discrimination of Odours.

117

Discussing the day's work in the evening over a comfortable peat fire, with the dog lying snugly on my railway rug (see to that my brother sportsmen, as you love your faithful friend), Mr. Cox was fain to confess his confidence in a thoroughly experienced retriever's nose, which indulgence in an hereditary instinct did not demoralise.

Many sportsmen appear to entertain the opinion that if a dog eats the bones of game he will lose his "nose." This seems to me antecedently most improbable, and the facts within my knowledge do not support it. Well fed sporting dogs refuse game, and notably waterfowl, as food, though no doubt they will eat these when hard pressed by hunger or when their food is too largely composed of farinaceous matter; for a considerable proportion of animal food, probably onethird at least, is essential to the health of a pointer, setter, or retriever in full work. My Australian retriever was sometimes reduced to the necessity of eating duck for two or three days together during our excursions in Moreton Bay, the small allowance of biscuit we were able to apportion to him being insufficient. The half of a well-roasted duck was not despised after the day's work, though he would touch nothing of the kind when any other flesh food was to be had. Nevertheless, his scenting powers did not fail in any respect either then or subsequently. The loss of this sense may probably be attributed to a different and obvious causelong standing catarrh in the nasal passages, occasioned by that partly ignorant and partly selfish neglect with which dogs are too often treated when they come home exhausted and cold and hungry, while their master goes to his comfortable fireside and hot dinner. We need not be surprised if the delicate membranes, which act as receiving surfaces for the odours, become thickened by prolonged inflammation, and eventually lose all sensibility. If the pointer were liable to have his faculty of scent injured by eating the bones of a partridge, how much more should that of a hound be vitiated by a good mouthful now and then out of a rank dog fox?

It is impossible for us with our obtuse senses to realise the extreme delicacy and discriminating power of the dog's nose. What odour can we conceive the imprint of a stag's foot to leave behind it? Yet the dog detects something long after the animal has passed over the ground. For twenty minutes after the stag is released from the cart enough remains of his odour to enable the hounds to go off in full cry. More remarkable still is the power of discrimination shown in distinguishing a "forward" from a "back" scent, which I believe experienced hounds can do without fail. Unless a hunting animal could ascertain by some difference in the Iscent which way an animal had gone, he could only catch it by accidentally hitting on the right direction; but when hounds come across the trail of a fox or hare, we see them run here and there for a few moments, and finally settle down on the forward scent. Is, then, the scent of each succeeding footprint appreciably, however slightly, stronger than the last ? In experimenting with my own dogs, I have walked in and out among the shrubberies and flower beds, and round sticks set up at intervals on the lawn of a large pleasure ground, and then from a place of concealment watched them running the trail. The person who was instructed to release them within a given time-say five minutes-would, in accordance with direction, lead them across some part of the trail at a spot previously agreed upon. For a few moments they might run about casting wildly and excitedly, but this hesitation was soon replaced by confident hunting on the forward scent.

The difference in the facility with which even first-rate retrievers, and, indeed dogs of all breeds, are capable of tracking their masters is very marked. Carlo I. was the most accomplished man-hunter among my own dogs, and I never met with his equal anywhere. The circumstances of his early life may account for this. When he was just able to carry a duck he used to accompany me to the small creeks on Moreton Bay to be introduced to the business

of retrieving live game. Among the dense patches of scrub and thick forest there it is an easy matter to lose a dog who runs off for a hundred yards on the trail of a wallaby. This repeatedly happened with Master Carlo, and, being reluctant to establish the bad habit of bringing him back by call or whistle, lest a shot at a duck might be lost, I used to stand still and wait for him. Finding the wallaby too fast for him, it may be supposed he gave up the chase, and then became suddenly struck with the consciousness of being lost in the bush. Sometimes I could catch sight of him running hither and thither in a bewildered way, presenting quite as touching a spectacle of mental distress as any lost child.

Watching him from behind a tree after he had made several excursions with me into the bush, I had an opportunity of observing the beginnings of the man-hunting accomplishment. He looked about him, stood still, listened attentively, lifted his head and howled, then ran on aimlessly, occasionally dropping his nose to the ground, as if impelled by some internal impulse, not, I thought, with any conscious intention of using his nose. This went on for some minutes, until he accidentally passed within a few yards of the tree, got wind of me, and rolled on my feet with delight at having found his master, and relieved an anxiety which had been as grievous in its way as we ourselves could experience. We can all understand what passed through that little canine heart bereaved in the wilderness-the heir of all the ages of domestication, separated from all it knew of companionship and sympathy, its feelings so pathetically expressed by the mournful wail sent up in the sombre gum forest. But we cannot understand that fitful dropping of the nose to the ground on any other supposition than that it represented the unconscious exercise of an hereditary racial instinct of over mastering force, called forth by the present stress of circumstances. When once the generalised instinct is thus called into play, its application to the settlement of any

particular question arising in the animal's mind would follow with experience; and the dog must eventually learn to hunt his master's trail. Before this dog attained the age of twelve months he had made himself an adept at manhunting, and, however intricate the bush might be, I had no fear of losing him.

When, then, I had some trials with him`in England at about four years old he tracked me with a certainty that I have not seen attained by any other dog. In a seven acre meadow, containing several isolated trees, I walked barefooted one morning a course of perhaps half a mile round about, doubling several times on my track, and passing round the trees in a particular order, and finally climbed into a tree, where I was sufficiently hidden by the foliage, and watched. A few minutes after I had taken up my station a friend led the dog into the meadow and released him. He cast about, and was very soon on the track, hunting it close, on an evidently hot scent. There was no appearance of more than momentary hesitation at the spots where I had doubled, and he passed round the trees in the same order as myself. On coming to the tree in which I was concealed, thirty feet above the ground, he hesitated, made some wide casts round, and returned to it in much perplexity. It did not seem to occur to him that I might be up above, but he was, at all events, convinced that there the trail ended, and kept running to and fro a few yards and whining with disappointment. I then came down and commended him for his capital piece of work.

This is a great amusement, or rather, an interesting study for those who possess an intelligent dog who has been trained to use his nose in finding wounded game, and I should think that very few dogs still in the enjoyment of intact olfactory organs-such as Newfoundlands, bloodhounds, colleys, setters, pointers, retrievers, spaniels, foxhounds, Scotch deerhounds, fox terriers, and Skye terriers-would have much difficulty in making a good show in this respect, provided always they